Shuster paints with great sympathy a complex picture of Mr. Zelensky and his transformation ... Like many writers on a tight deadline, Mr. Shuster crafted a longer book than he otherwise might have. But The Showman surpasses all similar efforts to date and is set to be the standard by which all other works on Mr. Zelensky and Ukraine’s wartime politics will be judged.
Takes the reader inside the nuclear bunker under the presidential palace in the first hours of the invasion ... Vividly rendering parts of contemporary Ukrainian history that often get lost amid headlines ... What emerges from The Showman is a portrait of a brave, inspirational and bold leader, with flashes of his humanity and the personality hidden behind the makeup.
Authoritative and engaging ... Wonks and experts will get something out of “The Showman,” but the book is most valuable to those who know little about the war and seek greater context and background. Shuster’s skills as a longtime magazine journalist serve him well here. He writes with clarity and immediacy about matters that could easily descend into centuries of history and reams of military strategy. The Showman has plenty of both, but always in the service of a tight narrative that deftly toggles from past to present and back again.
A far more intimate and much better informed biography than most politicians get from journalists. Shuster is an honest and frank biographer, thoroughly equipped for the job ... Shuster is particularly good in describing Zelenskiy’s courage in staying put in Kyiv with his family on the morning the Russian army invaded.
The book’s first draft was completed in the summer of 2023 and captures the mood shifts of the first 18 months of war ... Shuster’s book does justice to a complex man, who is fighting our fight as well as his own.
A compelling portrait of a man who has confounded Putin and whatever pre-invasion predictions he received from his intelligence agencies ... Shuster’s account will be hard to beat for its closeness to Zelenskiy during this momentous time for Ukraine and Europe.
As Simon Shuster’s superb wartime biography shows, the Ukrainian president rose to an unimaginable occasion, yet criticism is on the horizon ... Shuster avoids canonising St Volodymyr of Kyiv. Part of that saintly reputation, he points out, is because Zelensky has used emergency decrees to shut down independent TV channels, meaning that not much criticism gets aired ... After several books on the Ukraine war that have suffered from haste of publication, this is the best so far: an elegant account of the invasion’s first year as seen by those in the very eye of the storm. Publication deadlines, though, mean that it doesn’t really cover how Ukraine’s fortunes have worsened in recent months. Since then, the summer counter-offensive is widely perceived to have failed, and with Donald Trump possibly returning to the White House in November, Kyiv’s weapons tap could be turned off.
