Blake Bailey

El espíritu contradictorio de Cheever es exquisito. Abandonó la escuela al mismo tiempo que publicó su primer relato; se recuperó de su atroz alcoholismo para escribir Falconer; y su secreta homosexualidad se oponia a su marcada homofobia y su desprecio a si mismo. Blake Bailey logro un acceso sin precedentes a las fuentes -el diario personal de Cheever inclusive.

A canceled bestselling authors highly personal account of his public scandala scandal that was reported on the front page of the New York Times and throughout the world. Blake Bailey grew up in the shadow of his father, Burck, an eminent litigatorpresident of the Oklahoma Bar Association and widely considered a sort of real-life Atticus Finch: His conduct, honesty, integrity, and courtesy best exemplify and represent the highest standards of the legal profession, his colleagues commended him in a 1989 award citation. As for Blake, he was a late bloomer who finally came into his own as a writer. His fourth literary biography, Philip Roth, was published on April 6, 2021, and hailed as a narrative masterwork by Cynthia Ozick on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. The 900-page book debuted at #12 on the Times Nonfiction Bestseller list. But success came at a terrible price: because of revelations in Baileys biography, many were calling for Roth and his work to be canceled, while others thought Bailey had been overly sympathetic and even complicitous with his subjects worst failings. Soon rumors exploded on the internet about Baileys own private life, and within days he himself was roundly canceled. Canceled Lives is the story of a father and son who had much in commonfor better and for worseand who supported each other in the midst of terrible family strife, including the drug addiction and suicide of Blakes older brother, Scott. Having achieved a success in life that Blake, at least, never expected, both father and son were ravaged by the ordeal of Blakes spectacular public humiliation.

I dont want you to rehabilitate me, Philip Roth said to his only authorized biographer, Blake Bailey. Just make me interesting. Granted complete independence and access, Bailey spent almost ten years poring over Roths personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and listening to Roths own breathtakingly candid confessions. Cynthia Ozick, in her front-page rave for the New York Times Book Review, described Baileys monumental biography as a narrative masterwork As in a novel, what is seen at first to be casual chance is revealed at last to be a steady and powerfully demanding drive. under Baileys strong light what remains on the page is one writers life as it was lived, andalmostas it was felt." Though Roth is generally considered an autobiographical novelisthis alter-egos include not only the Roth-like writer Nathan Zuckerman, but also a recurring character named Philip Rothrelatively little is known about the actual life on which so vast an oeuvre was supposedly based. Bailey reveals a man who, by design, led a highly compartmentalized life: a tireless champion of dissident writers behind the Iron Curtain on the one hand, Roth was also the Mickey Sabbath-like roue who pursued scandalous love affairs and aspired [t]o affront and affront and affront till there was no one on earth unaffronted"the man who was pilloried by his second wife, the actress Claire Bloom, in her 1996 memoir, Leaving a Dolls House. Towering above it all was Roths achievement: thirty-one books that give us the truest picture we have of the way we live now, as the poet Mark Strand put it in his remarks for Roths Gold Medal at the 2001 American Academy of Arts and Letters ceremonial. Tracing Roths path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roths engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture.

A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Autobiography The renowned biographers unforgettable portrait of a family in ruinshis own. Meet the Baileys: Burck, a prosperous lawyer once voted the American Legions Citizen of the Year in his tiny hometown of Vinita, Oklahoma; his wife Marlies, who longs to recapture her festive life in Greenwich Village as a pretty young German immigrant, fresh off the boat; their addled son Scott, who repeatedly crashes the family Porsche; and Blake, the younger son, trying to find a way through the storm. Youre gonna be just like me, a drunken Scott taunts him. "Youre gonna be worse." Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Blake Bailey has been hailed as "addictively readable" by the New York Times and praised for his ability to capture lives "compellingly and in harrowing detail" by Time. The Splendid Things We Planned is his darkly funny account of growing up in the shadow of an erratic and increasingly dangerous brother, an exhilarating and sometimes harrowing story that culminates in one unforgettable Christmas.

Superlative... definitive and genuinely grippingSUNDAY TIMESUtterly engrossingEVENING STANDARDCompulsively readable... Beautifully written... DefinitiveOBSERVER Appointed by Philip Roth and granted complete access and independence, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roths personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations. The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the post-war literary scene. Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class Jewish milieu to achieve the heights of literary fame, how his career was nearly derailed by his catastrophic first marriage, and how he championed the work of dissident novelists behind the Iron Curtain. Bailey examines Roths rivalrous friendships with Saul Bellow, John Updike and William Styron, and reveals the truths of his florid love life, culminating in his almost-twenty-year relationship with actress Claire Bloom, who pilloried Roth in her 1996 memoir, Leaving a Dolls House. Tracing Roths path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roths engagement with nearly every aspect of post-war American culture.*A BOOKS OF 2021 PICK IN THE OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, FINANCIAL TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, EVENING STANDARD, SPECTATOR AND NEW STATESMAN*

Philip Roth (1933-2018) est mort trois ans avant la parution de cette monumentale biographie qui retrace le roman de sa vie d’homme et d’écrivain. Mais il en avait accompagné l’élaboration, de près,

From the prizewinning biographer of Richard Yates and John Cheever, here is the fascinating biography of Charles Jackson, the author of The Lost Weekenda writer whose life and work encapsulated what it meant to be an addict and a closeted gay man in mid-century America, and what one had to do with the other. Charles Jacksons novel The Lost Weekendthe story of five disastrous days in the life of alcoholic Don Birnamwas published in 1944 to triumphant success. Within five years it had sold nearly half a million copies in various editions, and was added to the prestigious Modern Library. The actor Ray Milland, who would win an Oscar for his portrayal of Birnam, was coached in the ways of drunkenness by the novels authora balding, impeccably groomed middle-aged man who had been sober since 1936 and had no intention of going down in history as the author of a thinly veiled autobiography about a crypto-homosexual drunk. But The Lost Weekend was all but entirely based on Jacksons own experiences, and Jacksons valiant struggles fill these pages. He and his handsome gay brother, Fred (Boom), grew up in the scandal-plagued village of Newark, New York, and later lived in Europe as TB patients, consorting with aristocratic cafe society. Jackson went on to work in radio and Hollywood, was published widely, lived in the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, and knew everyone from Judy Garland and Billy Wilder to Thomas Mann and Mary McCarthy. A doting family man with two daughters, Jackson was often industrious and sober; he even became a celebrated spokesman for Alcoholics Anonymous. Yet he ultimately found it nearly impossible to write without the stimulus of pills or alcohol and felt his devotion to his work was worth the price. Rich with incident and character, Farther & Wilder is the moving story of an artist whose commitment to bringing forbidden subjects into the popular discourse was far ahead of his time.

John Cheever spent much of his career impersonating a perfect suburban gentleman, the better to become one of the foremost chroniclers of postwar America. Written with unprecedented access to essential sourcesincluding Cheevers massive journal, only a fraction of which has ever been publishedBaileys Cheever is a stunning example of the biographers art and a brilliant tribute to an essential author.

Un retrato imprescindible de un maestro estadounidensey de la escena literaria de la posguerra.La figura del escritor ha encontrado pocas encarnaciones tan emblemáticas como en Philip Roth. Tras pasar años estudiando a fondo su archivo personal, Blake Bailey realizo entrevistas a amigos, amantes y colegas, y mantuvo conversaciones de una franqueza asombrosa con el propio Roth.Esta biografia recorre la vida del autor, desde su infancia, en un entorno judio de clase media-baja, hasta la cumbre de su fama. Analiza el peso que su desastroso primer matrimonio tuvo en su carrera, su labor en beneficio de colegas disidentes del otro lado del Telon de Acero, su rivalidad con amigos como John Updike o William Styron y su tumultuosa vida amorosa, en especial su relacion con Claire Bloom.Un texto honesto y documentado a conciencia que rastrea el recorrido de un maestro de la novela tan amado como cuestionado, pero imprescindible para la literatura contemporanea.La critica ha dicho: Philip Roth. La biografia (Debate), del perseguidor de vidas de escritores Blake Bailey, es una proeza en la que asombra como su autor persigue el dedalo de interminables detalles documentados hasta la extenuacion de los 85 años que vivio el hombre que escribio El lamento de Portnoy sin que la prosa del conjunto desfallezca. [...] Bailey, [...] logra ahora al pelearse con el fantasma de Roth durante casi mil paginas que el adjetivo "apasionante" no suene manido y huero. Daniel Arjona, El ConfidencialMinuciosa y rica en detalles, la obra de Bailey dota de un marco y una profundidad esclarecedores, siempre eludiendo el juicio moral, a la obra del autor, tan paralela a su vida. Andres Seoane, La Lectura, El MundoUna biografia encantadora, sabia e ingeniosa que logra un equilibrio y una exhaustividad que parecerian imposibles tras tan poco tiempo de la muerte de Roth. Jonathan LethemTodo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre Philip Roth lo puede descubrir en sus novelas. Todo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre lo que le costo convertirse en uno de los mayores escritores estadounidenses de nuestro tiempo lo encontrara en la impresionante biografia de Blake Bailey. Nicole KraussLa novela del siglo XIX sigue viva. Su nombre hoy es biografia; su naturaleza es de magnitud dostoievskiana. Y el exhaustivo relato de la vida de Philip Roth que hace Bailey es una obra maestra de la narrativa. Cynthia OzickSuperlativa, definitiva y genuinamente apasionante. Guia con lucidez a traves de un denso palimpsesto de identidades ficticias, enemistades literarias y mujeres.The Sunday TimesUna lectura compulsiva. Magnificamente escrita. Es dificil imaginar un libro que ofrezca respuestas mas definitivas que este.The Observer

Un retrato imprescindible de un maestro estadounidensey de la escena literaria de la posguerra. La figura del escritor ha encontrado pocas encarnaciones tan emblemáticas como en Philip Roth. Tras pasar años estudiando a fondo su archivo personal, Blake Bailey realizo entrevistas a amigos, amantes y colegas, y mantuvo conversaciones de una franqueza asombrosa con el propio Roth. Esta biografia recorre la vida del autor, desde su infancia, en un entorno judio de clase media-baja, hasta la cumbre de su fama. Analiza el peso que su desastroso primer matrimonio tuvo en su carrera, su labor en beneficio de colegas disidentes del otro lado del Telon de Acero, su rivalidad con amigos como John Updike o William Styron y su tumultuosa vida amorosa, en especial su relacion con Claire Bloom. Un texto honesto y documentado a conciencia que rastrea el recorrido de un maestro de la novela tan amado como cuestionado, pero imprescindible para la literatura contemporanea.La critica ha dicho:Philip Roth. La biografia (Debate), del perseguidor de vidas de escritores Blake Bailey, es una proeza en la que asombra como su autor persigue el dedalo de interminables detalles documentados hasta la extenuacion de los 85 años que vivio el hombre que escribio El lamento de Portnoy sin que la prosa del conjunto desfallezca. [...] Bailey, [...] logra ahora al pelearse con el fantasma de Roth durante casi mil paginas que el adjetivo "apasionante" no suene manido y huero.Daniel Arjona, El ConfidencialMinuciosa y rica en detalles, la obra de Bailey dota de un marco y una profundidad esclarecedores, siempre eludiendo el juicio moral, a la obra del autor, tan paralela a su vida.Andres Seoane, La Lectura, El Mundo Una biografia encantadora, sabia e ingeniosa que logra un equilibrio y una exhaustividad que parecerian imposibles tras tan poco tiempo de la muerte de Roth.Jonathan LethemTodo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre Philip Roth lo puede descubrir en sus novelas. Todo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre lo que le costo convertirse en uno de los mayores escritores estadounidenses de nuestro tiempo lo encontrara en la impresionante biografia de Blake Bailey.Nicole Krauss La novela del siglo XIX sigue viva. Su nombre hoy es biografia; su naturaleza es de magnitud dostoievskiana. Y el exhaustivo relato de la vida de Philip Roth que hace Bailey es una obra maestra de la narrativa.Cynthia Ozick Superlativa, definitiva y genuinamente apasionante. Guia con lucidez a traves de un denso palimpsesto de identidades ficticias, enemistades literarias y mujeres.The Sunday Times Una lectura compulsiva.Magnificamente escrita. Es dificil imaginar un libro que ofrezca respuestas mas definitivas que este.The Observer