Review by Choice Review
Paul Auster, author of novels, poetry, memoirs, and film scripts, has now produced a magisterial literary biography of 19th-century poet and fiction writer Stephen Crane (1871--1900). Crane had a short life but produced the classic The Red Badge of Courage and many admired works of short fiction and poetry. Auster makes the convincing case that Crane's poetry prefigures modernism. Crane knew the giants of his time, including Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Theodore Roosevelt. Auster shows how incidents in Crane's life and the social/political environment connect to his literary compositions, with superb quotes from published letters and contemporary memoirs. Auster has absorbed the previous scholarship on Crane and acknowledges the work done in the past. Unlike many literary biographies, Auster's book--his approach and his prose style--is totally engaging. Though Auster is not known as a literary scholar, this book is an important addition to a long list of books on Crane, starting with Thomas Beer's Stephen Crane: A Study in American Letters (1923) and most recently Paul Sorrentino's Stephen Crane: A Life of Fire (CH, Dec'14, 52-1848). In places Auster seems to be selling his subject--arguing that Crane has been undervalued until now. With this book, Crane's status and value will be incontrovertible. Readers will be convinced. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Barry Wallenstein, emeritus, CUNY City College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
High-wire fiction novelist (4321, 2017) and intrepidly candid memoirist Auster now proves to be an incandescent literary biographer. Deeply inspired and openly awed by the feverish genius and breathtaking daring of Stephen Crane, "the first American modernist," Auster recounts the dramatic and confounding story of Crane's reckless and all-too-brief life and explicates his creation of a radical "literature of pure telling." Auster portrays Crane as an inveterate gambler who maintained a "military stoicism" beneath his bohemianism, wrote ceaselessly in chaotic and dangerous circumstances, contended with harrowing poverty and ill health, and was devoted to truth-telling and prone to igniting controversies. Sharing numerous excerpts, Auster offers "nuts-and-bolts" analysis of and affectingly emotional appreciation for Crane's genre-twisting newspaper sketches, audacious and indelible novels, "infinitely strange" poems, and riveting short stories. Auster links Crane's "vast body of sublime and original work" to his blazing misadventures in New York City, war reporting in Cuba, near-death in a shipwreck, exile in England, and mostly clandestine love life, culminating in his unofficial marriage to his "spiritual double," the invincible Cora. Auster writes with such enrapturing vibrancy, expertise, and empathy that his biography serves as an intensive course in attentive, inquisitive reading as well as a thrillingly insightful and resonant portrait of a young artist who wrestled with the endless perplexities of life and death.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Stephen Crane (1871--1900), the author of the classic war novel The Red Badge of Courage, cuts a dashing figure in this beguiling literary biography from novelist Auster (Moon Palace). Delving into Crane's tragically short and impossibly romantic life, Auster covers Crane's stint in New York as a freelance journalist, his international celebrity after the publication of his novel, a scandal in which Crane defended a prostitute from false charges of solicitation, the shipwreck that inspired his famous story "The Open Boat," his reporting under fire during the Spanish-American war, and his death from tuberculosis at the age of 28. Along the way, Auster intertwines the engrossing picaresque with probing interpretations of Crane's works that consider his intensely lyrical writing, vivid realism, and detached psychological dissections of his characters as they struggle with social isolation and nature ("Most people outgrow their childhood interests and occupations, but Crane never did," Auster writes). The author also highlights the shipmates that, Auster writes, showed Crane "the subtle, unarticulated brotherhood, which in a universe without meaning is man's only defense against unmitigated despair." Auster's sprawling narrative combines punchy writing and shrewd analysis with an exuberant passion for his subject. The result is a definitive biography of a great writer. Photos. (Oct.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
The life of distinguished American author Stephen Crane embraced political controversy, an ill-fated affair with a married woman, common-law marriage to the proprietress of a bawdy house, near-drowning after a shipwreck, reportage from the front lines of the Spanish-American War, relocation to England and friendship with the likes of Joseph Conrad, and a veritable tsunami of short fiction, long fiction, and poetry--all by age 28, when he died of tuberculosis. Booker Prize short-listed and New York Times best-selling Auster should have the brio to report this remarkable story; with a 75,000-copy first printing.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The acclaimed novelist tackles the enigmatic life and work of American fiction writer, poet, and sometime journalist Stephen Crane (1871-1900). Much has been written about the New Jersey--born Crane, who succumbed to tuberculosis at age 28. An inventive and prolific writer, Crane is best known for The Red Badge of Courage as well as enduring short works such as "The Blue Hotel" and "The Open Boat." Though Crane has sparked the interest of numerous biographers and novelists--e.g., Edmund White's imaginative 2007 novel Hotel de Dream--many readers will be curious about Auster's take. Like Crane, Auster is from Newark, and his writing is also recognized for its inventiveness. He's passionate about Crane and aims to elevate his relevancy. "Crane is now in the hands of the specialists, the lit majors and PhD candidates and tenured professors," writes Auster, "while the invisible army of so-called general readers, that is, people who are not academics or writers themselves, the same people who still take pleasure in reading old standbys such as Melville and Whitman, are no longer reading Crane." Throughout, Auster conveys a highly personal, idiosyncratic perspective on his subject and the biography form itself: "You cannot curl up on a sofa and settle into a book by Crane. You have to read him sitting bolt upright in your chair." Yet, having spent nearly three years on this project, he may have been too eager to ensure his efforts were put to good use, as he exhaustively evaluates countless sources (primary and secondary) while probing and dissecting Crane's writing. Auster's in-depth exploration of major works like Red Badge is engrossing, as are most of his renderings of Crane's life experiences, such as the shipwreck that inspired "The Open Boat." However, when Auster applies his admittedly erudite methods to Crane's lesser work and to tangential events, the narrative suffers from bloat. Running close to 800 pages, the book would have benefitted from streamlining. Essential for Crane scholars; less engaging for others. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
