Reviews

Fred Kaplan, author of "The Singular Mark Twain; " "Gore Vidal: A Biography; Dickens: A Biography; " and "Henry James, The Imagination of Genius: A Biography"How lucky Paul Bowles was to have such a devoted and talented friend and biographer as Virginia Spencer Carr, who now brings us the first biography of the whole life. She illumines many of the private and mysterious corners of Bowles's complicated relationships and secretive personality. She gives life and depth to the intricacies of his marriage and his affairs, to his passive individuality and his literary originality. Beyond it all, he is still an enigma, unexplainable, far from fully likable, but always fascinating in this portrait of one of our most exotically modern literary and musical geniuses.