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.
A mighty tome ... For all its heft, this latest treatment adds little that’s substantively new ... Chernow, ever scrupulous, does not ignore the complexities, but his caution becomes its own kind of evasion. Apologies accumulate like packing peanuts.
