Synopses & Reviews
Dr. Benjamin Spock is known for how he revolutionized mainstream American family life with his book
Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, for the controversy caused by his psychological advice, and for his early and courageous opposition to the war in Vietnam. But, as award-winning biographer Thomas Maier uncovered through extensive interviews with Spock and his family, his personal life was filled with tragic ironies and contradictions. His family suffered through alcoholism, substance abuse, divorce, mental illness, suicide, sexual tensions, and emotional indifference. His childhood, which so infused his book and made its success possible, nevertheless seemed to prevent him from taking his own advice.
Maier, for the first time, tells the complete story of Spock's life, revealing the complicated journey of the man who said, "Trust yourself. You know more than you think."
Review
"Maier...has two good stories to tell the good and influential doctor, and the quixotic prophet and visionary. He tells them equally well." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Although Maier clearly respects Benjamin Spock and his accomplishments, he does not flinch from revealing how much the reality of Spock's life differed from his public persona as a kindly, comforting, and wise baby doctor....[I]ndispensable to all who are interested in Benjamin Spock as well as those who are interested in the 20th-century cultural norms of child rearing." Margaret Heagarty, M.D., The New England Journal of Medicine
Review
"[A] meticulously researched, extraordinarily full portrait of a man who was a revolutionary, both in the psychoanalytic understanding he introduced to pediatrics and in the dedication he brought to social concerns later in his life." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Maier...has done a marvelous job conveying a life that, despite shocks and deep sorrows, was an American triumph." New York Daily News
Review
"Maier's extensive interviews with Spock...his family, and others who knew him result in a comprehensive, interesting, and enjoyable portrait that is certain to be in...demand." Kathleen Hughes, Booklist
Review
"An exhaustively researched biography, enhanced in importance because Spock's death has deprived any future biographer of the kind of access to Spock that Maier had." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"The emerging portrait of a pioneer who brought modern psychological theories to parenting and a political activist, of a man who could relate to an adoring public better than to his own family, is compelling. The honesty of the Spock family in discussing personal issues and the author's objectivity are commendable." Library Journal
Review
"Self-absorbed, egotistical, indifferent to the well-being of his loved ones this is the portrait that emerges of the beloved Dr. Spock from the 500 pages of Maier's biography." Danielle Crittenden, National Review
About the Author
Thomas Maier, author of Newhouse and a journalist at Newsday, has won several national and regional journalism honors, including the National Society of Professional Journalists' top reporting prize in 1987 and the Frank Luther Mott Award from the National Honor Society in Journalism and Mass Communications for best book on the media. He is currently at work on his next book, The Emerald Kings, about Irish Catholicism in the Kennedy family. He lives in Long Island, New York.