Christopher Bigsby has very likely written the definitive biography of Miller...Bigsby has assiduously read countless unfinished scripts, unpublished stories, and drafts of Miller's plays, and he supplies abundant context so that the reader can compare Miller's views and social situations with those of his contemporaries. Bigsby takes extraordinary pains to explain how each play evolved and how it was received. He persuasively argues that Miller's career was shaped by a profound conviction that the theater could play a meaningful role in changing the world. Even if that belief appears overly hopeful, Miller's plays stand as a testament to his courageous capacity to explore dilemmas of civic conscience and the human heart.
Boston Globe - Michael Kammen
[A] magisterial biography...This is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in twentieth century theatre and particularly Miller's life and work...The author goes into remarkable detail based on years of research, to come to conclusions about the life of a man who at his best was perhaps the greatest American playwright of the last fifty years, or possibly ever.
British Theatre Guide - Philip Fisher
Monumental...A portrait of a man with a passion for social (and racial) justice and a fierce belief in responsibility for one's own life, though Miller was often harder on himself than on others for not always living up to such ideals.
creators.com - James Hebert
[A] fascinating biography of Arthur Miller.
Evening Standard - Nicholas de Jongh
Bigsby leaves no facet of playwright Arthur Miller's life, public or private, unexamined in this literally and figuratively weighty tome...Although this volume covers only the first 48 of Miller's 89 years, the book is a definite godsend to theater lovers and generations of students probing Miller's life and work.
Booklist (starred review) - Jack Helbig
[A] colossal biography...This is a fat, endlessly informative book, the work of a lifetime...It is as definitive as we are likely to get, with plenty of new material. It also reveals much more than Miller did in his autobiography, Timebends . Above all, it is a book about the puzzle of politics and art and about the unreliable solution provided by sex—or Marilyn Monroe as it was once called.
Sunday Times - Bryan Appleyard
Bigsby has produced a thorough book that is unlikely to be surpassed in its wealth of detail.
Mail on Sunday - Toby Young
Thanks to Bigsby's research, particularly into previously unseen material, his account of Miller trying to hang on to his soul in midcentury America shows that he was large not least in his contradictions...What the book makes newly clear, though, is how much of Miller's work reflects his own personal struggles.
New York Times Book Review - Jeremy McCarter
Christopher Bigsby is the first to offer a serious biography since Miller's death.
The Morning News - Robert Birnbaum
[A] meteor-size new biography...Bigsby's book is crammed with piquant details.
New York Times - Dwight Garner
Christopher Bigsby's lengthy, sympathetic study contains electrifying new perspectives on its subject...The man who emerges from these pages is more of a showman than is usually credited and more of a modern hero, too.
The Observer - Vanessa Thorpe
A feature of this encyclopedic study of the first half of Miller's life is the excellence of the writing and the trans-Atlantic acuity of observation. Bigsby is always at home in Miller's America...Bigsby's extended defense of Miller's gut rejection of Kazan's apostasy is an intellectual triumph.
A masterly biography of Miller.
Daily Mail - Tony Rennell
Christopher Bigsby has very likely written the definitive biography of Miller...Bigsby has assiduously read countless unfinished scripts, unpublished stories, and drafts of Miller's plays, and he supplies abundant context so that the reader can compare Miller's views and social situations with those of his contemporaries. Bigsby takes extraordinary pains to explain how each play evolved and how it was received. He persuasively argues that Miller's career was shaped by a profound conviction that the theater could play a meaningful role in changing the world. Even if that belief appears overly hopeful, Miller's plays stand as a testament to his courageous capacity to explore dilemmas of civic conscience and the human heart.
Christopher Bigsby is the first to offer a serious biography since Miller's death.
[A] monumental new biography...Miller's art was a constant, arduous and often soul-searing process of working through themes from his life....[Bigsby's] book is a portrait of a man with a passion for social (and racial) justice and a fierce belief in responsibility for one's own life, though Miller was often harder on himself than on others for not always living up to such ideals.
Christopher Bigsby has a perfect ear for the manners and motions of Miller's art, and he tells a gripping story of Miller's hunt for truth. There are mysteries to bear and ironies to become invested in--all good biographies must have their share--and yet the Miller who emerges from this book is ambiguous enough to become a beacon of the Cold War period...Bigsby's biography is so effective because it manages to locate Miller's art in terms both of the progression of his idealism and the regressions of his actual experience. There can't be many writers who appeared to live so much at the center of their times and who suffered so much from that seeming centrality...One of the coups of Bigsby's terrific biography is that it finally allows Miller to name the names he refused to name in 1956.
Thanks to Bigsby's research, particularly into previously unseen material, his account of Miller trying to hang on to his soul in midcentury America shows that he was large not least in his contradictions...What the book makes newly clear, though, is how much of Miller's work reflects his own personal struggles.
New York Times Book Review
Monumental...A portrait of a man with a passion for social (and racial) justice and a fierce belief in responsibility for one's own life, though Miller was often harder on himself than on others for not always living up to such ideals.
[A] meteor-size new biography...Bigsby's book is crammed with piquant details.
[A] magisterial biography...This is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in twentieth century theatre and particularly Miller's life and work...The author goes into remarkable detail based on years of research, to come to conclusions about the life of a man who at his best was perhaps the greatest American playwright of the last fifty years, or possibly ever.
A masterly biography of Miller.
A landmark biography.
A feature of this encyclopedic study of the first half of Miller's life is the excellence of the writing and the trans-Atlantic acuity of observation. Bigsby is always at home in Miller's America...Bigsby's extended defense of Miller's gut rejection of Kazan's apostasy is an intellectual triumph.
Bigsby leaves no facet of playwright Arthur Miller's life, public or private, unexamined in this literally and figuratively weighty tome...Although this volume covers only the first 48 of Miller's 89 years, the book is a definite godsend to theater lovers and generations of students probing Miller's life and work.
Booklist (starred review)
Contains electrifying new perspectives on its subject...Miller, it's clear, was not a dry, cerebral naive but a principled, passionate talent, who recognized imperfection in himself and in others. The man who emerges from these pages is more of a showman than is usually credited and more of a modern hero, too.
[A] colossal biography...This is a fat, endlessly informative book, the work of a lifetime...It is as definitive as we are likely to get, with plenty of new material. It also reveals much more than Miller did in his autobiography, Timebends . Above all, it is a book about the puzzle of politics and art and about the unreliable solution provided by sex--or Marilyn Monroe as it was once called.
[A] fascinating biography of Arthur Miller.
Bigsby has produced a thorough book that is unlikely to be surpassed in its wealth of detail.
[A] fascinating biography of Arthur Miller.
Evening Standard - Nicholas De Jongh
