Seemingly nothing has been overlooked or left out. Normally, this would be a signal weakness in a biography — shape and form do matter — but Chernow writes with such ease and clarity that even long sections on, say, Twain’s business ventures prove horribly fascinating ... For all its length and detail, Chernow’s book is deeply absorbing throughout and likely to succeed the excellent earlier lives by Justin Kaplan and Ron Powers as the standard biography.
Chernow here documents Twain’s failings, as well as his triumphs, in exhaustive fashion ... More than simply a book about America’s seminal writer, this is a long and winding story about the quintessential American — clothes and buttons, mind and heart, warts and all.
