Review by Booklist Review
Pulitzer Prize--winning biographer Chernow, best known for his authoritative works on such political figures as Hamilton, Washington, and Grant, here examines the life of one of our most celebrated literary figures with equally remarkable results. Samuel Clemens, born in 1835 and raised in Hannibal, Missouri, was a precocious and restless child who detested school. His first love was the Mississippi River, where he served as a river-boat pilot until the Civil War erupted. Sam served briefly in the Confederate army until he travelled to San Francisco and the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii), where he began writing in earnest and adopted his nom de plume, Mark Twain. The adventures continued on a grand overseas tour, providing material for The Innocents Abroad, Twain's best-selling book during his lifetime. His story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" became a sensation and led to a successful lecture tour, allowing Twain to hone his famous wit. Chernow is an exceptional portraitist, adding depth and shadow to bring his subject fully to life. The impeccable research blends seamlessly into a narrative that examines Twain in all his guises: devoted family man, writer, publisher, entrepreneur, and inventor. Like his subject, Chernow has a keen ear for the perfect quote, insult, and witty rejoinder. This monumental achievement will stand as the definitive life of Mark Twain.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Chernow (Grant) again proves himself among his generation's finest biographers with this magisterial account of the life of Mark Twain (1835--1910). Recounting Twain's Missouri upbringing, Chernow suggests that the writer's humor and antipathy toward authority developed in opposition to his father, a stern county judge "who discovered no charm in juvenile antics." Chernow sheds light on the making of Twain's classic works, describing, for instance, how he was ambivalent about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and even contemplated burning the unfinished manuscript before completing it in a burst of creativity that saw him churn out 4,000 words per day. Highlighting less well-known aspects of Twain's life, Chernow discusses the development of Twain's political outlook in his early 30s while working as private secretary to a Republican senator from Nevada, and his impassioned condemnation of the mistreatment of Chinese immigrants in articles throughout his career. Chernow's razor-sharp portrait offers nuanced explorations of Twain's many contradictions--noting, for instance, that Twain condemned Gilded Age barons as greedy even as he almost single-mindedly sought to amass his own fortune--as well as unvarnished assessments of his flaws, which, in Chernow's telling, included surrounding himself with 10- to 16-year-old girls, whom he regarded as his "pets," after his wife's death. Amply justifying the considerable page count, this stands as the new definitive biography of the revered author. Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency. (May)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America's greatest writer. It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life andAlexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president's Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain's inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author's life. As Chernow writes, Twain was "a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick." He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain's flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that "evolution in matters of racial tolerance" is one of the great strengths of Chernow's book). Harder to explain away is Twain's well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting "angel-fish" to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, "It isn't the public's affair." While Twain emerges from Chernow's pages as the masterful--if sometimes wrathful and vengeful--writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist. Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
