RaveTimes Literary Supplement (UK)Compelling ... As engaging and provocative as Balint’s exploration of Schulz’s posthumous legacy often is, the most valuable part of his book may be its first half ... Balint wisely fashions a concise and eloquent critical biography of the man leading up to his murder.
Brian Boeck
PositiveLos Angeles Review of Books\"In the first half of Stalin’s Scribe, Boeck traces Sholokhov’s road to that meeting, demystifying, insofar as possible, the heavily mythologized and painstakingly obscured details of the ambitious autodidact’s youth ... In the end, Boeck’s assessment of Sholokhov’s literary development is both fairer to the man and more revealing of the era [than previous reports] ... as Boeck’s biography testifies, it is possible to explain that diminution in productivity and quality with reference to the extreme pressure under which Sholokhov was trying to work ... Of course, dead authors can’t be held responsible for the uses to which they are put. But while they live, as Boeck’s insightful and compelling biography shows us, they should be wary of proximity to power: it singes talent.\
Douglas Smith
RaveThe Los Angeles Review of Books[Smith's] balanced, impeccably researched book is a revelation, as richly detailed and engrossing as any novel ... Smith brings forth an image of the human Rasputin — still uncertain, still inconclusive, but free of obvious falsehoods — slowly, as if freeing a sculpture from a block of stone ... His portrait of a spectacularly incompetent royal couple, crippled by the weight of responsibility and the agony of watching their only son succumb to haemophilia, inspires both sympathy and frustration...Smith’s portrait of Rasputin himself is even more nuanced.
