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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Want to know Steinbeck? Start here!, December 30, 2002
This review is from: John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography (Paperback)
For my doctoral research, which involves the history of coastal California, I wanted one big, clearly written book that was solidly put together but not clogged with footnotes. I found it here. Fifteen years of research, some of it with friends and relatives of Steinbeck's, went into this biography, which reads like a straight-up narrative of the writer's adventurous life. Though long, it reads quickly, devoid of academic jargon. Highly recommended.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An epic, entertaining biography, May 29, 2001
This review is from: John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography (Paperback)
John Steinbeck once considered writing an autobiography, and it's a shame the Nobel prize winner never lived to do it. Mr. Steinbeck's letters and journals blaze with sharp and honest introspection, keen insight into human behavior and empathy. It's certain that an autobiography would have been a classic. So, instead, we rely on those who write biographies to chronicle the life of one of America's great writers. There have been several Steinbeck biographies and many of those have been well done. But Jackson J. Benson's version, titled simply "John Steinbeck, Writer", is the definitive one - over 1,000 pages of readable and compelling material that follows the writer's life from his Huck Finn childhood in Salinas, California, to the success of his novels and the failures of his marriages in midlife, and finally to domestic bliss mixed with pain from pretentious critics whose stones and arrows he could not duck and would not ignore in his later years. The ability to wrestle the massive amount of research that this work involved into a book that anyone can enjoy is an achievement that amazes. It's the next best thing to the autobiography that never was.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not quite 5-stars, but very, very good..., May 22, 2002
This review is from: John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography (Paperback)
Frankly, it just got a little long for me. Steinbeck was---and probably still is---my favorite American writer. This book reminded me why: Not only for the beauty of his prose and amazing powers of description, but for his uncompromising integrity, loyalty and devotion to his craft. I learned a lot about this man, but also about the book publishing business and the literary world. One has to tip his hat to the author for the level of detail and the research performed, especially his good fortune in being able to interview all three of his wives. Reading this after reading most of Steinbeck's major works, gave insight into what drove JS to write each one of his works and helped dispel any misconceptions about his political tendencies and whether he was trying to write "political message" books or not. Most appalling was to find out how little regarded Steinbeck was among the literary critics in the last 25-30 years of his life, to the point that they questioned the Nobel Prize Committee's decision-making process once JS was honored with the award. There is a lot to learn in this book. I wouldn't have minded reading a little less detail on some of the progress (or lack of) on some of his lesser works and some of his travels. But for the Steinbeck fan, this is a must-read.
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