This may be close to a perfect biography. It’s a warm and fuzzy romp for baby boomers eager to reconnect with their bright college years and beyond. And it’s a perfect biography for Trudeau: respectful, informative, and none too intrusive — just the way he would want it, I think.
The first major biography of this reclusive satirist ... It doesn’t dig too deep. It verges on hagiography ... Kendall’s book works anyway; it has a good story to tell. I devoured it in two or three sittings, as if it were an ideal bag of popcorn. This book will be a many-sided nostalgia trip for anyone who’s read Doonesbury in something like real time, and a mind-popping introduction to Trudeau’s oeuvre for tykes who did not ... It’s a meat-and-potatoes biography. Sometimes that’s the best kind: Get out of the way and let the story tell itself. I occasionally longed for a more authoritative voice.
Mr. Kendall’s biography avoids being an intrusive, interrogating look at the cartoonist and his longstanding narrative. It reads as if the author wished not to bug Mr. Trudeau, who certainly cooperated with the book but did not authorize it ... Much of the writing would not be out of place in a commemorative program. This lack of critical spirit may be related to one of the book’s more serious faults. Even as it relies heavily on the word 'preppy' to explain Mr. Trudeau’s targets and subject, it makes little attempt to explore what a preppy is or what the word has meant ... Yet this uncritical approach comes with upsides, reintroducing an interesting but familiar subject for fresh consideration.
Kendall’s biography unearths private letters, unpublished drafts, and moments when Trudeau pushed the news forward. But it suffers from the double-edged quality of its access. Because Trudeau opened his archives, Kendall acquires a built-in bias even as he interviews detractors. Even the interviewees Trudeau most excoriated ask him for signed strips. Moreover, Kendall barely addresses his subject’s aesthetic deficiencies ... Trudeau & Doonesbury skates around a devastating irony: Trudeau mastered the daily comic strip just as it entered terminal decline ... Kendall’s biography documents Trudeau’s achievement with admirable thoroughness, but the unspoken question lies in how much contextual immediacy matters to the Doonesbury experience.
Compelling ... Will resonate with readers, especially those who grew up seeing the characters and storylines in their daily papers. Public and academic libraries that focus on American culture and politics will also be interested.
Kendall’s biography is best when it’s embedded in Trudeau’s truthseeking glory days, but loses momentum as his subject begins to rest on his rightfully earned laurels ... An uneven celebration of an exceptionally influential cartoonist.
