Autobiography
3,600-Page Autobiographical Novel Is An Honest And Masterful 'Selfie'
My Struggle is about Karl Ove Knausgaard's wrangle with his father, with death, with his muse and so on. The 46-year-old Norwegian's pointedly unliterary book has become a literary sensation.
How We Deal With Loss In Different Ways In Two Beautifully Written Memoirs
In Abigail Thomas' What Comes Next and How to Like It, the aging process robs the 70-something of beauty and energy. In H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald trains a goshawk after her father dies.
'Circling My Mother,' A Memoir of Love and Pain
Fresh Air's book critic reviews Circling My Mother, the new memoir by novelist Mary Gordon; the book chronicles Anne Gordon's battles with polio, alcoholism, and eventually with senile dementia, and details the author's acceptance of both "the burdens and blessings of caring for her mother in old age."
The Life of Bob Dylan, in Print
Rock historian Ed Ward reviews Bob Dylan's new autobiography, Chronicles, Vol. I.
Men and Women's Work Explored in Novel and Exhibition.
Maureen Corrigan reviews Donald Hall's new book, Life Work and the Mechanical Brides exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York which runs through January 2nd.
Philip Roth Writes the "Facts" of His Life
Book critic John Leonard reviews Roth's new autobiography, which includes imagined critiques of the author by some of his recurring characters. Leonard says it's an interesting but tiresome exploration of Roth's neuroses and thematic predilections.