Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon (Hardcover)

~ Rollyson Carl (Author), Carl Rollyson (Author), Lisa Paddock (Author) "One of her earliest memories-she is about four-is set in a park..." (more)
Key Phrases: desert childhood, board minutes, gay writer, Susan Sontag, New York, Roger Straus (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Known variously (and with varying degrees of kindness) as "the Beatnik Boadicea," "the Paganini of criticism " and "the most curious person alive," Susan SontagAcritic, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, public intellectualAhas consistently provoked awe, distrust, veneration and fear as one of the most perceptive, talented and controversial of American writers and thinkers. Although she has occupied a central place in the twin worlds of literary and popular culture since her influential first essays appeared in the Partisan Review in the early 1960s, this is the first full-length biography and one of the few critical studies of the author and her work. Rollyson and Paddock have unearthed a deluge of information on Sontag's personal lifeAon her early years and family life, her lesbianism (which she has only recently publicly acknowledged), her relationship with son David Rieff and her battles with breast cancer. While the authors provide an intelligent, though not strikingly original, analysis of her work, they are best at detailing how Sontag and her publishers have marketed her image as much as her thought. Often the book has a casual feel that undercuts its seriousness, and Rollyson and Paddock frequently seem willing to quote anyone who will criticize Sontag (Camille Paglia's remarks come off as petty and self-promoting). Yet in the end, this is a respectful, informed first look at an important writer's life. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The writer Susan Sontag has turned down very little publicity over the years since setting American criticism on its ear with her essay "On Camp" in 1964. But, while the authors of this first life of Sontag acknowledge her uneasiness with the possible disclosures of biography, perhaps this reluctance has more to do with a legitimate fear of being trivialized. Rollyson and Paddock are far more deft on the subject of Sontag's evolving celebrity and famously glamorous book jacket photos than on her contributions to cultural criticism (e.g., Against Interpretation, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor) or fiction (Death Kit, "The Way We Live Now," The Volcano Lover). The authors follow Sontag from her lonely, bookish childhood in Tucson, AZ, through her brilliant days at the University of Chicago and Harvard, early marriage and motherhood, divorce, life in Europe and New York, and journeys to China, Vietnam, Israel, and Sarajevo. The book sometimes has a tone of reluctant chattiness in discussing her literary rivalries or romantic quarrels with male and female lovers, and Sontag's lack of cooperation shows especially in the childhood sections that draw on published interviews. Her trademark hair turns up so often in the journalistic narrative that it gains a kind of sidekick status by book's end. An optional purchase, especially for libraries already owning A Susan Sontag Reader (1982).
-DNathan Ward, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.; 1st edition (July 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393049280
• ISBN-13: 978-0393049282
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #642,777 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Biography as Provocative as Its Subject, August 21, 2000

By	Dennis M. Patterson (voorhees, nj USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a book equal to its subject. Few intellectuals are as interesting as Susan Sontag, and the authors are fair and balanced in their presentation of the facts and controversies that make up the life of Sontag. The authors point to many facts that can only engender admiration of Sontag. For example, her fierce independence-- forsaking the safety of academic appointments to enhance her freedom to write on her own terms. Sontag's refusal to be labelled a "woman writer" or "lesbian writer" is a rejection of the simplistic logic of the "identity" crowd now so dominant in the academy. There is much to criticise in the life of Sontag (e.g., her fatuous embrace of the North Vietnamese) but far more to admire and emulate. Both authors and subject are better off for this book.

21 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Bad Book, August 26, 2000

By A Customer

This is a bad book. The two authors, who between them have about 1/100th of Sontag's intelligence, integrity, and imagination, written in the most pedestrian prose possible, set about to undo her reputation.

Each time they credit her with something, within the next sentence or two they somehow take it back, or cast doubt on it. Only her battles with cancer are described with anything like sympathy.

Apparently it is beyond them that a woman, and a beautiful woman at that, could produce some of the most important essays of our time. That she has changed her position on some issues is treated as some sort of betrayal, hypocracy, or attempts to jump on a particular bandwagon. Perhaps, like the intelligent woman she is, she re-thought some of her earlier positions.

Why they wrote this book is beyond me.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Biography as Provocative as Its Subject, August 21, 2000

By	Dennis M. Patterson (voorhees, nj USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a book equal to its subject. Few intellectuals are as interesting as Susan Sontag, and the authors are fair and balanced in their presentation of the facts and controversies that make up the life of Sontag. The authors point to many facts that can only engender admiration of Sontag. For example, her fierce independence-- forsaking the safety of academic appointments to enhance her freedom to write on her own terms. Sontag's refusal to be labelled a "woman writer" or "lesbian writer" is a rejection of the simplistic logic of the "identity" crowd now so dominant in the academy. There is much to criticise in the life of Sontag (e.g., her fatuous enbrace of Hanoi) but far more to admire and emulate. Both authors and subject are better off for this book.