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For all but a few of the 41 seasons that “Saturday Night Live” has been on the air, Lorne Michaels has been at the helm of this NBC sketch-comedy institution, helping to give national attention to stars like Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Tracy Morgan and Jimmy Fallon. Now a new book will tell the story of Mr. Michaels’s life and a trailblazing comedy career spanning nearly half a century.

Random House confirmed Tuesday that it had acquired a biography of Mr. Michaels to be written by Susan Morrison, articles editor of The New Yorker magazine.

Ms. Morrison was hired by Mr. Michaels to work at his shorter-lived 1984 NBC sketch program “The New Show,” where she was an assistant to the writer-producer Jim Downey, and she has edited “S.N.L.”-affiliated authors like Jack Handey and Steve Martin at The New Yorker. She said in response to emailed questions that she has been thinking about Mr. Michaels’s work for several decades.

“In the ’70s, Lorne noticed that while movies and music had kept pace with the counterculture, television was still square,” Ms. Morrison said. “With ‘S.N.L.,’ he changed that: suddenly television could be smart and hip, transgressive.”

Ms. Morrison said that Mr. Michaels (who is also executive producer of NBC’s “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers”) had given the book his blessing, and that she had been speaking with him and his friends and colleagues “for several months.”

The book, which does not yet have a title or publication date, will track Mr. Michaels’s upbringing in Toronto and his early years in the entertainment industry, “but it will focus on ‘S.N.L.’ and the impact the show and Lorne have had on show business,” Ms. Morrison said.

Citing a revered ‘S.N.L.’ writer, Ms. Morrison said: “Lorne likes to quote Michael O’Donoghue, that ‘sophomoric’ is liberal code for ‘funny.’ It’ll be interesting to look at how the show has dealt with the creep of political correctness, how it reflects shifting attitudes toward race, women and other political issues.”

A media representative for NBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.