No new releases here . . . let's consider someone from the backlist . . . .
I’ve always enjoyed reading biographies of writers, which is probably why I’ve ended up writing them.
Back in my Indiana hometown recently, I made a trip to my favorite used bookstore, Caveat Emptor, in Bloomington. I didn’t know I was looking for a biography of William Saroyan, but I found it — thanks to the miracle of serendipity. God bless browsing.
A Daring Young Man is a decade old and is the work of John Leggett. He might be the guy who hooked me on literary biographies in the first place.
Years ago, he wrote Ross and Tom, a dual biography of two young writers killed by success. Ross Lockridge wrote Raintree County, then took himself out in the garage. Tom Heggen, who gave the world Mister Roberts, died of the deadly combination of too-many sleeping pills and a full bathtub.
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2012.