Review by Choice Review
What did Arthur Miller witness regarding 20th-century life in the US? According to Lahr (distinguished author, biographer, and longtime drama editor at The New Yorker), Miller witnessed the advent of various disquieting phenomena: tribalism, cutthroat competition, political paranoia, a me-first attitude, and pervasive estrangement among people and within families. Lahr observes that Miller perceived firsthand the passing out of favor of a critically acclaimed playwright--himself--as new writers took center stage, and he perceived that he was becoming increasingly more invisible to American audiences. Nonetheless, Miller chose not to rest on his well-deserved laurels. He remained an engaged public intellectual and participated in various theatrical activities. For example, he served as the president of PEN International, vigorously protested the Vietnam War, campaigned for Eugene McCarthy, traveled to Sweden and China to direct productions of Death of a Salesman, and continued to create works for the stage until his death in 2005 at the age of 90. In this instructive, well-wrought interpretative biography, Lahr illuminates the enduring contributions Miller made to cultural affairs, at home and abroad. This insightful, accessible presentation will captivate Miller scholars and novices alike. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers. --Howard Ira Einsohn, formerly, Wesleyan University--Institute for Lifelong Learning
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
New Yorker critic Lahr (Tennessee Williams) shines in this searching account of the life of playwright Arthur Miller (1915--2005). Lahr's vivid portrait begins with Miller's youth, first in Harlem then Brooklyn, as an underachieving student who couldn't get into college. Miller was eventually accepted to the University of Michigan, where his enrollment was contingent on him having $500 in savings; when that was drained, Miller risked expulsion until he entered a university writing competition with a cash prize in 1936. For reasons unclear even to Miller, he decided to write a play, No Villains, which won second place and set him on a path to greatness. The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944) became his "first play to open on Broadway," and All My Sons, three years later, earned him acclaim ahead of the 1949 debut of Death of a Salesman (which is performed almost every day somewhere, Lahr notes). Lahr elucidates Miller's creative process, and discusses how Marilyn Monroe stirred his imagination (he wrote her into an unfinished play after their first encounter) and his choice to challenge McCarthyism with The Crucible. Lahr's at his best using small moments to illuminate his subject, as when the 16-year-old Miller realized the depths of his father's impoverishment when his father asked him for a quarter to pay his subway fare. It's a great introduction to a giant of American letters. (Nov.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Highlights from the life and career of one of America's most famous playwrights. "Why are you a revolutionary?" Arthur Miller (1915-2005) asked himself in one of his notebooks. "Because the truth is revolutionary and the truth you shall live by." In the latest installment of the publisher's Jewish Lives series, Lahr, whose 2014 biography of Tennessee Williams won the National Book Critics Circle Award, shows the ways in which that truth-seeking spirit manifested itself in one of the most storied playwriting careers ever. Miller grew up in Jewish Harlem, and his father, Isidore Miller, was the owner of a financially successful clothing company before the Depression wiped out the family's savings. His "unhappy" mother, Augusta, believed that "Arty" had a "special destiny," but his high school grades were so bad that no college would accept him. He eventually attended the University of Michigan, where he would "soak up" Marxism, gain sympathy for the working class, and learn to incorporate politics and family life into landmarks of the American theater, including All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. Lahr takes readers through the highs and lows of his subject's life: the antisemitism he faced; his break with director Elia Kazan over Kazan's willingness to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee; and his three marriages, including a disastrous union with Marilyn Monroe. Lahr cites Miller's autobiography, Timebends, so often that some readers may want to go directly to the original source. He does a good job, however, showing how Miller's experiences informed plays such as The Golden Years, The Price, The Crucible, and the Pulitzer-winning Salesman. Lahr also excels in his analyses of Miller's works, including his one novel, Focus, which showed how alienation and mindlessness were "part of the equation that results in anti-Semitism," and plays such as 1964's After the Fall, his first after his marriage to Monroe, a flawed work that is nonetheless "extraordinary as a map of Miller's internal geography." An engaging summary of a celebrated and checkered career. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
