Book Report: "Mark Twain"

 

Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In an exhaustive and exhilarating biography that only could have been written after 2010, when Mark Twain's massive autobiography was finally published, a century after his death, Ron Chernow delves into the plainspoken observational genius of the greatest American author.

Chernow goes deeper than cataloguing Twain's successes, weaving in substantial psychoanalysis in an effort to peek under the hood of what made his engine hum. Written with a confident sense of tale spinning that would have impressed Twain, Chernow explores Twain's iconoclastic gusto, his deep, if overbearing, love of his daughters, his uncanny ability to bungle investments and his disturbing tendency to idolize and collect strangely intimate relationships with teenage girls.

There is an air of Greek tragedy to Twain's life, which was plagued with medical maladies, financial insecurity and misdirected passions. Yet no matter what difficulties he faced, Twain managed to keep afloat with a bitter wit that managed to mine humor out of the darkest of circumstances.

Twain's boldness and bravery shines throughout the ups and downs of his career, and Chernow's novellistic yarn cuts through the tapestries of his grandeur and sizes up the man as he was. Exhaustive research and fevered storytelling make for yet another Chernow home run.

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