{"product_id":"the-life-of-saul-bellow-9780099520931","title":"The Life of Saul Bellow","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLiterature Book of the Year, \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Terrific'' \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Enthralling'' \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Magisterial''\u003ci\u003e Daily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Unsurpassable'' \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time \u003ci\u003eHerzog\u003c\/i\u003e was published in 1964, Saul Bellow was probably the most acclaimed novelist in America, described in later years by the critic James Wood as the greatest writer of American prose in the twentieth century.' Zachary Leader's biography shows how this prose, with its exhilarating mixture of high culture and low, came into existence. It also traces Bellow's life away from the desk, as polemicist, teacher, husband, father and lover. Fierce in his loyalties, Bellow was no less fierce in his enmities, combative in defence of his freedoms. Spanning the period from Bellow's birth in 1915 to the publication of \u003ci\u003eHerzog\u003c\/i\u003e in 1964, volume one of this biography is the first since Saul Bellow's death, and the first to discuss his life and work in its entirety.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eZachary Leader's \u003ci\u003eLife of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune 1915-1964\u003c\/i\u003e  is already the equal of Richard Ellmann's great \u003ci\u003eLife of Joyce\u003c\/i\u003e. The first instalment is scrupulous, dispassionate, morally sensitive, profoundly informative and marvellously acute in its literary judgements. It's a miracle of lucidly marshalled detail -- Craig Raine, Books of the Year * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eThe most purely delicious literary biography that I’ve come across. Leader’s calm, gradual, but serenely excited prose vibrates with the joy of his thought coalescing with his subject, Saul Bellow -- Richard Brody * New Yorker *\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a terrific biography. It’s also a first-rate piece of literary criticism. The book doesn't really privilege the life or the fiction, or belittle the complexity of reading between them. But taken together they offer a very detailed kind of evidence, about the costs and benefits of Bellow's existential intensity -- Benjamin Markovits * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eLeader displays a phenomenal, line-by-line familiarity with Bellow’s oeuvre. His biography is awesomely well-researched... His interweaving of life and works, letters, unpublished manuscripts and historical documents is seamless -- John Walsh * Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003eThe first volume by Zachary Leader might be the most intelligent, fair-minded and most carefully furnished Life of a contemporary novelist I have read… It challenges both the official and the fictional versions, it upends the self-justifying letters, and offers an account that is never knowingly uncomplicated, sentimental or prejudiced, and never dull -- Andrew O’Hagan * London Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eA triumph. If it is hard to think of a literary biography of its scope, depth and literary integrity it is as much because of Leader's mastery of his subject as of Bellow's event-filled life -- George Walden * Evening Standard *","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51017522741591,"sku":"9780099520931","price":18.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780099520931.jpg?v=1750773826","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-life-of-saul-bellow-9780099520931","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}