Unveiling the Complex Legacies of Bernstein, Brooks, Freidan, and Mailer: A Provocative Review by David Denby
Presenting dramatically the key disasters and victories—the operatic moments—of their lives could have easily crippled the presentation of a second sine qua non: the factual trusswork undergirding any worthy biography. Or the opposing pitfall: stuffing in too many names, dates, accounts of parties, meals, trips, liaisons and so on. As a biographer who has struggled with a surfeit of material, I can testify to the lure of this slippery slope. Biographers always run the risk of letting their narratives run level to their sources, destroying a good story with marginally important information.
