PositiveThe Los Angeles TimesThis book feels very much like a labor of love, even obsession, and perhaps projection: Jamison deeply empathizes with Lowell, and clearly treasures his poetry, which she quotes frequently and at length. Her analytical eye may at times be blinded by her love and admiration for her subject, and yet this is also the best book so far about one of our most polarizing contemporary literary figures ... Jamison is the first biographer who isn’t afraid of Lowell; neither tarnishing his monumental reputation nor admitting that an identification with his insanity intimidates her. Perhaps the time that has passed since his death and the resurgence of his reputation accounts for the former; Jamison’s own struggles with madness certainly account for the latter. While at times her identification with her subject — Lowell, it becomes clear, is a kind of hero to Jamison — clouds her critical vision, Jamison is the first biographer to succeed at humanizing this larger-than-life figure.
