Revelatory ... Shines when it offers glimpses into the lives of Schuyler’s luminous pals ... Throughout this book, which is rich with original interviews, Mr. Kernan offers sensitive readings of Schuyler’s poems and moods ... Mr. Kernan and Schuyler became good friends in 1990, the year before Schuyler died, and it feels oddly appropriate when, toward the book’s conclusion, its author starts popping up in its pages.
Kernan provides a wealth of detail about a figure who, while hardly unknown, has long retained an air of mystery ... Because of the chaos that engulfed so much of his life, much of A Day Like Any Other makes for harrowing reading ... Invaluable.
Finally lets Schuyler stand out in front once more ... The next fifteen years of biography…require readerly patience of the kind demanded when sorting through who’s who in Tolstoy. They’re also the most unabashedly fun ... Kernan’s hand throughout is quiet, calm ... Kernan’s job is to let us drop in on the poet at work, the resilient friend in need. This is achieved ... The poems are fully formally and musically in control of themselves. So is Kernan as he represents the precariousness of Schuyler’s life and mind ... Kernan neither sensationalizes nor downplays what was true for the poet ... Here, Kernan’s method of citing Schuyler allows the poet to speak for himself—a move that is radical for those with severe mental illness ... Kernan is careful to tell it more like it was.
