Critical Compendium » Bernard Malamud: A Life, by Philip Davis

Bernard Malamud: A Life, by Philip Davis

“Bernard Malamud, one of the most original voices of American fiction in the last half-century, outwardly led a most ordinary and orderly life. He possessed neither the exuberant charm of Bellow, nor the megalomania of Mailer. “As a life,” his publisher Roger Straus once said, “it was unexciting. Saul Bellow was filet mignon, Malamud was hamburger.” Private, fastidious and reserved, Malamud gave his life over wholly to perfecting his art. In looking at such a focused life, one can tally its costs, as the author’s daughter Janna Malamud Smith does in her aptly named memoir, “My Father Is a Book,” published last year. Or one can admiringly count the fruits that such self-sacrifice bears. In his new book, the first full-scale biography of Malamud (1914-1986), Philip Davis takes the second tack.” Read the review at Haaretz.

Filed under: Biography, Nonfiction | Posted 01.29.08 | Comments:

[…] review of Philip Davis’s Bernard Malamud: A Life in Haaretz (HT: Critical Compendium) uncovers a similar problem with the subject. Chandler was cryptic because his relationship with […]

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