Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow is known for writing massive biographies of the country’s most enduring figures, including Ulysses S. Grant and Alexander Hamilton. So it comes as no surprise that his biography of author and humorist Mark Twain clocks in at more than 1,000 pages.
It’s also forgivable, considering that Twain was such a colossal figure in American literature and history that his authorized biography was more than 1,500 pages long.
Chernow’s “Mark Twain” is well worth that length to learn more about the author best known for introducing readers to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Chernow’s book aptly portrays Twain as someone who “fairly invented our celebrity culture,” the precursor to the influencers that dominate our lives today. Twain had no qualms about cashing in on his fame, with his name being used to promote cigars, pipes and other products.
But Twain was known just as much for the attitude linked to the humorist and his works. Twain, as Chernow describes him, was “someone willing to tangle with anyone, make enemies and say aloud what other people only dared to think.”
Chernow’s biography avoids the trap of idolizing Twain and gives an honest assessment of the author’s life, including his flaws and contradictions.
Revered for addressing the evils of slavery in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Twain was also someone who avoided lending his voice to condemning the practice of lynching. That silence, Chernow writes, was a major missed opportunity to help foster a national debate.
Chernow also delves into the uncomfortable subject of Twain’s obsession in his later years with teenage girls, developing close friendships with teens that he dubbed his “angelfish.”
Chernow’s willingness to give readers the unvarnished truth about Twain makes the biography stand out, as does his ability to simultaneously explore the historical and literary context of Twain’s writing. Even Twain’s lesser-known works are addressed.
Twain comes alive in the pages of Chernow’s biography, which shows how much he was influenced by his wife and her “delicate restraining hand.” It also portrays the complex and fraught relationship Twain had with his daughters.
The book drags at some points, which is inevitable in a tome of this size, and is strongest when it tells the relationship Twain had with the written word. Chernow writes that “words were his catharsis, his therapy, his preferred form of revenge.”
The recurring theme of Chernow’s biography is Twain’s love affair with the written word, and it ably demonstrates the impact that relationship had on a nation.
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