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.
This is not a book for the casual reader, and Chernow never quite gets to the core of the contradictions in Twain’s conflicted soul. But he tells the whole story, in all its glory and sorrow ... Mark Twain is a masterful exploration of the magnificent highs and unutterable lows of an American literary genius.
