Beginning with Kingsley Amis and now Saul Bellow , Leader has established himself as one of the preeminent biographers of today.
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I’m an old woman not really from the me too generation but the famous authors of my youth - Bellow, Updike, Mailer, Salinger and Hemingway, from an earlier generation, had nothing to say to me. If they taught me anything it was how to know and stay in my place. There weren’t many women writers work on offer but I’ll take Simone deBeauvoir, Mary McCarthy, Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith over the guys any day.
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And to think he was a "dreamer" brought to the US illegally by his father!
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There are many writers who deserve a biography of the length and detail of Leader's Bellow volumes. Bellow is not one of them. Once a writer wins a Nobel, especially a white male writer, the writer becomes a star of the highest magnitude. Once that happens, there will be little useful critical reassessment of his writing. That's what has happened with Bellow. Leader's monster biography won't help matters.
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I look forward to reading this bio. But I am a devoted reader of Saul Bellow’s writings.
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@jpkerr from reading this review, sounds like you are wrong.
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@jpkerr "Once that happens, there will be little useful critical reassessment of his writing." Saying it doesn't make it true.
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