An rxcellent biography of a complex man who handled the mercurial egos of the greatest American writers of the first hal of the 20th century. I wonder if any novelist today is nurtued in the Perkins manner. If so, they should be grateful indeed.

Excellent, sympathetic account of a gentle man and excellent editor. One thing I've wondered since reading this book is if anyone has taken Thomas Wolfe's brain tumors into account regarding his rift with Perkins shortly before his death. It just seems bizarre that Wolfe would turn on Perkins the way he did. It seems to me his many brain tumors—along with his attempts to self-medicate by drinking heavily—were the culprits of his behavior. In other words, I don't think he was responsible for the bizarre behavior he exhibited when he got sick. He had so many brain tumors his cranial fluid shot across the room when the doctors opened his skull during surgery. That many tumors have got to affect a person's behavior. I wish someone was around to point that out to Perkins, given that he obviously felt a lot of pain over his falling out with Wolfe.

This book is everything a non-fiction biography of one of twentieth century America's literary greats should be - insightful, informative, comprehensive - but it is also everything the fiction that Maxwell Perkins used to oversee was - moving, encompassing, wonderfully character driven and full of prose that makes you sigh with a smile.

I got lost in Max Perkins' story immediately and kept turning the pages thanks to surprisingly unexpected twists and turns that surrounded his career, or rather the careers of the greats he led so well; Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe and James Jones. An essential read for anyone interested in the New York publishing scene in the first half of the 1900s and the whole book - so stodgily well written - serves as a reminder of how beautiful biographies can be.

4.5

A chronicle of Max Perkins's time as the book editor at Scribner, where he oversaw works by Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

A movie was made based on this book: Genious (2016). With Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and directed by Michael Grandage