Synopses & Reviews
A moving, insightful biography of the Nobel Laureate and a study of J. M. Coetzees work, illuminating the creation of his exceptional novels
J. M. Coetzee is one of the worlds most intriguing authors. Compelling, razor-sharp, erudite: the adjectives pile up but the heart of the fiction remains elusive. Now, in J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing, David Attwell explores the extraordinary creative processes behind Coetzees novels from Dusklands to The Childhood of Jesus. Using Coetzees manuscripts, notebooks and research papersrecently deposited at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at AustinAttwell produces a fascinating story. He shows convincingly that Coetzees work is strongly autobiographical, the memoirs being continuous with the fictions, and that his writing proceeds with never-ending self-reflection.
Having worked closely with him on Doubling the Point, a collection of Coetzees essays and interviews, and given early access to Coetzees archive, David Attwell is an engaging, authoritative source. The Life of Writing is a fresh, riveting take on one of the most important and opaque literary figures of our time. This moving account will change the way Coetzee is read, by teachers, critics, and general readers.
Review
Praise for Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story
“In his revealing new biography, D.T. Max gives us a sympathetic portrayal of Wallace’s life and work, tracing the connections between the two, while mapping the wellsprings of his philosophical vision…what Mr. Max’s book does do -- and does powerfully – is provide an emotionally detailed portrait of the artist as a young man.” –Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“All readers, even those who know nothing of Wallace, will be moved by the portrayal of one man’s honest struggle with mental illness…the portrayal of the latter half of his life is deeply sympathetic and surprisingly inspiring…[the book’s] poignancy is in its emphasis on Wallace’s years of hard-earned survival and his efforts, though unrealized, toward artistic transformation.” –Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“A well-crafted, insightful chronicle of this singular writer’s life and literary work…Max’s biography succeeds on multiple levels: through his astute interpretations of Wallace’s literary output and liberal quotes from the writer himself, this book very much embodies the spirit and life of Wallace…for this reader, the biography provides a measure of solace – that is this great writer can’t be among us, at least he can be remembered in all of his genius and complexity.” –S. Kirk Walsh, The San Francisco Chronicle
“I’m having trouble remembering when I was last so consumed by any piece of writing, fiction or non… In providing a more complete sense of Wallace than we ever had while he lived, it makes his death feel more real, somehow more irrefutable. And, for anyone who felt a profound emotional connection to Wallace and his work, there’s a strenuously cathartic dimension to this: the experience of knowing him more fully, and of thereby feeling more completely the force and finality of his absence.” –Mark O’Connell, Slate.com
“Documenting the life of a writer as revered and tormented as the late David Foster Wallace is a fraught task at best. D.T. Max has done an admirable job with Every Love Story is a Ghost Story…what emerges is a vivid portrait of an artist whose verbal brilliance was continually hampered, and ultimately silenced, by debilitating mental illness.” –Steve Almond, The Boston Globe
“While Max appears to greatly admire Wallace as a writer and feel compassion for him as a man, he is never starry-eyed, or pulls his punches. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story is as illuminating, multifaceted, and serious an estimation of David Foster Wallace’s life and work as we can hope to find.” –Elissa Schappell, Vanityfair.com
“Brilliant and compulsively readable… a convincingly intimate and lucid narrative...Max’s new biography deftly reassembles the life of David Foster Wallace…strips away the legend and gives us an all-too-human writer.” –Taylor Antrim, Vogue.com
“Full of all kinds of strange surprises, painting the most complete, and warmest, portrait of Wallace yet.” –Rolling Stone
“Wallace’s first biographer, the lucid and energetic D.T. Max, restores the man to his own story. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story takes a balanced and unfussy approach, avoiding hagiography and dealing directly with both the gifts and flaws of a mammoth talent…Max makes us wish Wallace were alive to continue the conversation.” –Gemma Sieff, Town and Country
“All dedicated readers of contemporary American literature will know the tragic, haunting and ultimately unfathomable story of David Foster Wallace, the prodigiously gifted writer - no, genius - who reshaped the contours of both the novel and long-form nonfiction in his far-too-brief life. D. T. Max has now provided answers to the questions that can be answered and asked, with tact and grace, the ones that can't. His biography is a model of deep scholarly excavation and acute sensitivity, an exemplary feat of literary portraiture.” —James Atlas, author of Bellow: A Biography
“This book is vey well-researched, deeply sympathetic, and incredibly painful to read. We should feel grateful that this story was told by someone as talented and responsible as D.T. Max.” —Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King
"This book should be handed to anyone who wants to write, if only to remind the aspiring writer that becoming a voice of generational significance turns out to be very poor insulation indeed from struggle, fear, and despair. D. T. Max is beautifully attuned to Wallace's strengths, whether personal or literary, and bracingly clear-sighted on his flaws. The result is a book that's moving, surprising (Wallace voted for Reagan?), and hugely disquieting. If you love Wallace's work, you obviously need to read this book; if you don't love Wallace's work, you especially need to read this book.” —Tom Bissell, author of The Father of All Things
“A damnably readable, streamlined, yet deeply researched work. Skipping the ancestors and aftermath of conventional biography, Max gives us the man, his work, and his times--the niceties of which (so complicated, so exquisitely intertwined) Max articulates with, well, Wallace-like lucidity and wit. Above all this is the story of a touching young man who insisted on being something better than simply the smartest person in the room.” —Blake Bailey, author of Cheever: A Life
"I’d worried that by making David Foster Wallace less mythic, D. T. Max would make him smaller. But the accretion of well-chosen details makes Wallace greater: a complete human being, one whom these superbly reported pages allow us to know rather than to worship. And that makes his loss even more unbearable." —Anne Fadiman, author of At Large and At Small
“This a book about being human, living human, writing human -- Wallace's own subjects -- and chronicles with real compassion the complex, fierce joy Wallace took in being alive. A treat for Wallace fans and anyone who cares about the prose of our time.” —Brenda Wineapple, author of White Heat
"Building on his acclaimed New Yorker profile, Max draws on his unparalleled access to sources--from friends and family members to previously unpublished notes and letters--and renders a life and literary portrait that fans will devour and critics will find indispensable. Through the grace of D. T. Max's clear prose readers will know Wallace and miss him as never before." —Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill
“D.T. Max’s biography is a touchingly sad story, well and honorably told, and consistently full of the human warmth that David Foster Wallace longed for, in his life and his work-- a longing he could never quite satisfy in either." —Madison Smartt Bell, author of The Color of Night
Review
Praise for
Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story:
“In his revealing new biography, D.T. Max gives us a sympathetic portrayal of Wallaces life and work, tracing the connections between the two, while mapping the wellsprings of his philosophical vision…what Mr. Maxs book does do -- and does powerfully - is provide an emotionally detailed portrait of the artist as a young man.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“All readers, even those who know nothing of Wallace, will be moved by the portrayal of one mans honest struggle with mental illness…the books] poignancy is in its emphasis on Wallaces years of hard-earned survival and his efforts, though unrealized, toward artistic transformation.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“A well-crafted, insightful chronicle of this singular writers life and literary work…Maxs biography succeeds on multiple levels: through his astute interpretations of Wallaces literary output and liberal quotes from the writer himself, this book very much embodies the spirit and life of Wallace…for this reader, the biography provides a measure of solace - that is this great writer cant be among us, at least he can be remembered in all of his genius and complexity.” —S. Kirk Walsh, The San Francisco Chronicle
“Im having trouble remembering when I was last so consumed by any piece of writing, fiction or non…Maxs focus is, not surprisingly, more or less resolutely on Wallaces life as it related to his art. This decision to strip the story down to its narrative essentials pays off in terms of compulsive readability…In providing a more complete sense of Wallace than we ever had while he lived, it makes his death feel more real, somehow more irrefutable. And, for anyone who felt a profound emotional connection to Wallace and his work, theres a strenuously cathartic dimension to this: the experience of knowing him more fully, and of thereby feeling more completely the force and finality of his absence.” —Mark OConnell, Slate.com
“You find it painful, frightening, and, yes, gripping, to read about someone in chronic and severe emotional distress. In writing a chronologically narrated, thoroughly researched, objective-as-imaginable biography, Max has created a page turner.” —Rivka Galchen, The New York Times Book Review
“Maxs long-awaited bio, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, helps us understand the man behind the words, and the mind behind the suicide…[Max] makes Wallace begin to cohere and become more approachable, more real…necessary reading if you care about DFW or the cultural moment that shaped him and then felt his impact.” —Evan Hughes, GQ.com
“Documenting the life of a writer as revered and tormented as the late David Foster Wallace is a fraught task at best. D.T. Max has done an admirable job with Every Love Story is a Ghost Story…what emerges is a vivid portrait of an artist whose verbal brilliance was continually hampered, and ultimately silenced, by debilitating mental illness.” —Steve Almond, The Boston Globe
“Maxs long-awaited biography of David Foster Wallace has been the end-of-summer book for readers of literary fiction. It has inspired countless reviews, conversations, and online outbursts…Max somehow manages to tell a compelling story that peels back the public image of Wallace without stripping it bare, creating a portrait of a troubled and gifted man who crafted some of our times best writing and giving readers a fuller sense of the relation of the work to the life.” —Samuel Cohen, The Believer
“While Max appears to greatly admire Wallace as a writer and feel compassion for him as a man, he is never starry-eyed, or pulls his punches. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story is as illuminating, multifaceted, and serious an estimation of David Foster Wallaces life and work as we can hope to find.” —Elissa Schappell, Vanityfair.com
“Brilliant and compulsively readable…M
Review
"A delight to read: it will make you angry, amused, scornful and sympathetic by turns." (
San Francisco Chronicle)
"Coetzee makes a book of melancholy beauty and quiet force." (Vince Passaro, O Magazine)
Review
Review
Fiercely revealing, bluntly unsentimental. . .a telling portrait of the artist as a young man that illuminates the hidden source of his art." —
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Exceptional...a scorched tale of race, caste, shame, and—at times—hilarious bewilderment." —The New Yorker
"Tremendously readable and powerful...a masterfully told, spare and accessible memoir." —The Boston Globe
Synopsis
An insightful literary biography of the Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee s, illuminating the creation of his extraordinary novels
J. M. Coetzee is one of the most renowned yet elusive authors of our time. Now, in J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing, David Attwell explores the extraordinary creative process behind Coetzee's work, from Dusklands to The Childhood of Jesus. Drawing on Coetzee's manuscripts, notebooks and research papers housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, Attwell reveals the fascinating ways in which Coetzee's famous novels developed, sometimes through more than fifteen drafts. He convincingly shows that Coetzee's work is strongly autobiographical, and that his writing proceeds with never-ending self-reflection while it moves toward aesthetic detachment. Above all, Attwell argues, South Africa, with its history, language, landscape and conflicts, is much more present in his novels than we have realized.
Having worked closely with Coetzee onDoubling the Point, acollection of essays and interviews, Attwell is an engaging, authoritative source. J.M. Coetzee andThe Life of Writing is the first book-length study to make use of Coetzee's extensive archive. A fresh, engaging and moving take on one of the world's foremost literary figures, it is bound to change the way Coetzee is read."
Synopsis
The first biography of the most influential writer of his generation, David Foster WallaceDavid Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his era, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace’s tormented, anguished and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.
Since his untimely death by suicide at the age of forty-six in 2008, Wallace has become more than the quintessential writer for his time—he has become a symbol of sincerity and honesty in an inauthentic age. In the end, as Max shows us, what is most interesting about Wallace is not just what he wrote but how he taught us all to live. Written with the cooperation of Wallace’s family and friends and with access to hundreds of his unpublished letters, manuscripts, and audio tapes, this portrait of an extraordinarily gifted writer is as fresh as news, as intimate as a love note, as painful as a goodbye.
Synopsis
The acclaimed New York Timesbestselling biography and emotionally detailed portrait of the artist as a young man” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) Since his untimely death by suicide at the age of forty-six in 2008, David Foster Wallace has become more than the representative writer of his literary generationhe has become a symbol of sincerity and honesty in an inauthentic age, a figure whose reputation and reach grow by the day. In this compulsively readable biography, D. T. Max charts Wallaces tormented, anguished, and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest. Written with the cooperation of Wallace family members and friends and with access to hundreds of Wallaces unpublished letters, manuscripts, and journals, this revelatory biography illuminates the unique connections between Wallaces life and his fiction in a gripping and deeply moving narrative that will transfix readers.
Synopsis
The second installment of J. M. Coetzee's fictionalized "memoir" explores a young man's struggle to experience life to its full intensity and transform it into art. The narrator of
Youth has long been plotting an escape-from the stifling love of his overbearing mother, a father whose failures haunt him, and what he is sure is impending revolution in his native country of South Africa. Arriving at last in London in the 1960s, however, he finds neither poetry nor romance and instead begins a dark pilgrimage into adulthood.
Youth is a remarkable portrait of a consciousness, isolated and adrift, turning in on itself, of a young man struggling to find his way in the world, written with tenderness and a fierce clarity.
Synopsis
Shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize
A brilliant new work of fiction from the Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace and Diary of a Bad Year
A young English biographer is researching a book about the late South African writer John Coetzee, focusing on Coetzee in his thirties, at a time when he was living in a rundown cottage in the Cape Town suburbs with his widowed father-a time, the biographer is convinced, when Coetzee was finding himself as a writer. Never having met the man himself, the biographer interviews five people who knew Coetzee well, including a married woman with whom he had an affair, his cousin Margot, and a Brazilian dancer whose daughter took English lessons with him. These accounts add up to an image of an awkward, reserved, and bookish young man who finds it hard to make meaningful connections with the people around him.
Summertime is an inventive and inspired work of fiction that allows J.M. Coetzee to imagine his own life with a critical and unsparing eye, revealing painful moral struggles and attempts to come to grips with what it means to care for another human being. Incisive, elegant, and often surprisingly funny, Summertime is a compelling work by one of today's most esteemed writers.
Synopsis
"Not since Disgrace, has he written with such urgency and feeling." -The New Yorker Nobel Prize-winning author J. M. Coetzee's new book follows a young biographer as he works on a book about the late writer, John Coetzee. The biographer embarks on a series of interviews with people who were important to Coetzee during the period when he was "finding his feet as a writer"-in his thirties and sharing a run-down cottage in the suburbs of Cape Town with his widowed father. Their testimonies create an image of an awkward, reserved, and bookish young man who finds it difficult to connect with the people around him. An innovative and inspired work of fiction-incisive, elegant, and often surprisingly funny- Summertime allows one of the most revered writers of our time to imagine his own life with a critical and unsparing eye.
Synopsis
Coetzee grew up in a new development north of Cape Town, tormented by guilt and fear. With a father he despised, and a mother he both adored and resented, he led a double life—the brilliant and well-behaved student at school, the princely despot at home, always terrified of losing his mother's love. His first encounters with literature, the awakenings of sexual desire, and a growing awareness of apartheid left him with baffling questions; and only in his love of the high veld ("farms are places of freedom, of life") could he find a sense of belonging. Bold and telling, this masterly evocation of a young boy's life is the book Coetzee's many admirers have been waiting for, but never could have expected.
About the Author
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 9, 1940, John Michael Coetzee studied first at Cape Town and later at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in literature. In 1972 he returned to South Africa and joined the faculty of the University of Cape Town. His works of fiction include Dusklands, Waiting for the Barbarians, which won South Africa's highest literary honor, the Central News Agency Literary Award, and the Life and Times of Michael K., for which Coetzee was awarded his first Booker Prize in 1983. He has also published a memoir, Boyhood: Scenes From a Provincial Life, and several essays collections. He has won many other literary prizes including the Lannan Award for Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize and The Irish Times International Fiction Prize. In 1999 he again won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for Disgrace, becoming the first author to win the award twice in its 31-year history. In 2003, Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.