Farther and Wilder

Praise

“Brilliant and gripping. . . . A great American biography.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Arresting. . . . Bailey is the literary biographer of our generation.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Scrupulous and compassionate. . . . As a portrait of the artist as a ruined man, Bailey’s account is a chilling addition to the museum of literary failure. . . . He presents [Jackson] credibly, with diligence and sympathy, as a man infatuated with the romantic image of The Writer.”
—The New York Times

“Meticulous and sensitive.”
—The New Yorker

“Bailey has made an author come alive in a way that is truly novelistic, has made him submit to becoming a character in a story. . . . A kind of miracle, one that we can all be grateful for.”
—Wall Street Journal

“The novelist Charles Jackson may not be as well known as subjects of Blake Bailey’s previous biographies . . . but he is no less fascinating. In Farther & Wilder . . . Mr. Bailey portrays his life with the same dogged attention to detail, literary panache and brilliant storytelling that he brought to those other subjects. . . . Mr. Bailey’s triumph is in fleshing out both Jackson’s literary legacy and the man himself.”
—New York Observer

“Impressive. . . . Reminds us not only how biography can be good, but also why the genre matters—how it can excavate importance from histories that might otherwise be forgotten. . . . Bailey’s achievement is staggering.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“A fascinating anatomy of failure.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[A] rich, probing biography. . . . Shrewdly analyzes Jackson’s sometimes crippling, sometimes fertile contradictions. . . . [A] compelling portrait of a conflicted writer whose genius emerges in dubious battle with his demons.”
—Publishers Weekly 

 “[A] case for the resurrection of this deeply prescient and problematic novelist, who broke open taboos about alcoholics and homosexuals well before it was cool and championed F. Scott Fitzgerald when he was in the process of being remaindered. . . . [An] eloquent, poignant portrait of the artist as outsider and misfit.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Suavely written, magnetically readable.”
—Booklist

“A richly detailed, well-documented look at Jackson’s troubled life. . . . Bailey’s absorbing biography will interest literary scholars as well as general readers.”
—Library Journal

 “Fascinating. . . . As is true of the best biographers, Bailey illuminates not only his subject but also the socio-cultural norms of the times. . . . [He] succeeds magnificently.”
—Lambda Literary