Volume 53, Number 6 · April 6, 2006
Force of Nature
By Robert Gottlieb
Elia Kazan: A Biography
by Richard Schickel
HarperCollins, 510 pp., $29.95
Elia Kazan was a man of large talents, large ambitions, and large appetites, and he deserves a book that reflects both his achievements and his complicated passage through life. Luckily, he has one—his own extraordinary autobiography. A Life, published in 1988, is a relentless attempt to make you understand him, and to help him understand himself. It's proud, self-lacerating, provocative, and—even when you feel you're being manipulated—convincing. It's also very long. (I was his editor, so you can blame me.)
Review, 4776 words
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