JAMES KAPLAN's essays, stories, reviews, and profiles have appeared in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire, and New York. His novels include Pearl's Progress and Two Guys from Verona, a New York Times Notable Book for 1998. His nonfiction works include The Airport, You Cannot Be Serious (co-authored with John McEnroe), Dean & Me: A Love Story (with Jerry Lewis), and the first volume of his definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, Frank: The Voice. He lives in Westchester, New York, with his wife and three sons.
Praise for Sinatra: The Chairman "Fifty pages from the end of
Sinatra: The Chairman, the second and concluding volume of James
Kaplan's magisterial biography of Frank Sinatra, I guarantee you'll
begin to weep. Not because you've finished a 900-plus-page book
(though you will feel relief), or because Kaplan so persistently
details the ugly truth about Sinatra... No, you will weep over the
death of a massive and unforgettable talent whose style of living
helped define post-war America, and you will weep for an America
that no longer exists, whether you lived during those years or just
yearn for their return."
--Sibbie O'Sullivan, The Washington Post "Kaplan's second volume is
a hand-stitched tapestry with many, many recurring motifs... The
remarkable thing is that Sinatra's career is such a compelling
transit of the 20th century in American entertainment and
politics--and an early and prophetic blending of the two--that the
endless Kaplan book is endlessly engaging. His Sinatra is a
magnificent monster--imperious and callow, thuggish and tender, an
exquisitely lonely man forever surrounded by a posse of
hangers-on."
--Edward Kosner, Wall Street Journal "Do not be deterred by the
book's heft. Sinatra: The Chairman is a riveting read--a juicy,
painstakingly researched, excitingly written examination of a
brilliant musician, an uneven and temperamental actor, and a
charming, erratic, deeply flawed man."
--Julia M. Klein, The Boston Globe "Definitive, and irresistibly
engrossing...Kaplan is terrific dissecting Sinatra and the mob. His
elucidation of Sinatra's contribution to the shadowy Kennedy
presidential campaign is exemplary. He is at his best reporting
'the less than sublime goings-on, ' as he terms them, that "always
in Frank's life...bracketed sublime music."
--Barry Singer, USA Today "The degree to which that brutality is
from reality and not just comic mythology in Vegas lounges can be
read about in full glorious technicolor detail in one of the huge,
and hugely compelling, books of 2015, Sinatra: The Chairman, the
second volume of James Kaplan's wildly readable doorstop biography
that began with the near-definitive Frank: The Voice."
--Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News "Hugely readable, vastly
entertaining, a page-turner."
--Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker "I think James Kaplan's two volume
set is the definitive word on Frank Sinatra, as definitive as any
biography of any public figure can be. It's jammed with something
juicy on almost every page. It has been written with integrity and
affection. It neither sugar coats or demonizes. It presents what
all stars are--ordinary mortals with ordinary cares, writ large by
fame, and in Sinatra's case, a peerless talent. Sinatra concocted a
towering life on the American landscape."
--Liz Smith "Such a book stands or falls on its author's
storytelling ability. In that regard, Kaplan does admirably, with a
sense of momentum and a fair, balanced tone."
--James Gavin, Newsday "In the first volume of his Sinatra
biography...James Kaplan provided a gripping, novelistic account of
the singer's roots and the development of his craft, deftly mapping
his assimilation of early influences and his discovery of his own
voice. "Sinatra: The Chairman," the concluding volume to that
biography, does a similarly nimble job of tracing the singer's
continued rise to international fame, and credibly explicates the
alchemy behind the singer's collaboration with Nelson Riddle and
their amazing achievement during the Capitol Records years with
masterpieces like "Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely" and
"Songs for Swingin' Lovers!"
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Engaging to the point of
addiction, The Chairman provides a spirited romp through the prime
times of Sinatraland and the September of his years. It also
reminds us why Kaplan grew enchanted enough with Sinatra to spend
10 years writing about him... But oh, that voice. It made up for so
much. It cut through the clutter of everything else. Before
Sinatra, there was really no such thing as a standard. Before
Sinatra, you'd be hard-pressed to associate the Great American
Songbook with any particular singer. Such was his impact. So bring
on the tributes. And start with The Chairman."
--Chris Vognar, The Dallas Morning News "The book is detailed
enough about Sinatra's music, movies and complicated personal life
to satisfy completists, but Kaplan always has his eye on the big
picture."
--Lloyd Sachs, Detroit News "Kaplan's Frank came out in 2010--do we
need 900 more pages on Ol' Blue Eyes? This intriguing bio, timed to
his 100th birthday, will convince you we do."
--People Magazine "If you ever wanted to know exactly what Frank
Sinatra was doing on every single day of his life, Kaplan is your
man. The Chairman is rich with fascinating detail, much of which
I'd never heard.... When Kaplan describes Sinatra the singer, The
Chairman soars: 'a flawless legato, perfect diction, and graceful
phrasing based on a total mastery of breath control.'"
--Allen Barra, The Daily Beast.com "Scrupulous, entertainingly
eye-opening...You'll dig Kaplan's highbrow down-low of Ol' Blue
Eyes...during his controversial and powerful reign in the 1950s and
'60s."
--Elle Magazine ..".[R]emarkably insightful, gracefully, often
eloquently, written history of popular music and celebrity culture
in twentieth-century America--all viewed through the lens of an
iconic singer and undervalued actor whose wildly contradictory
personality and tempestuous personal life built the legend but
detracted from the man's genius as an artist.... As astute in his
psychological analysis as in his music criticism, Kaplan makes
sense of the singer's insistence on taking way too many encores by
noting Sinatra's need forconstant movement: 'He was like a whole
body case of restless leg syndrome.' That restlessness finally
shook itself out, but, along the way, it drove a skinny kid from
Hoboken to live a life that, as Kaplan concludes, 'touched almost
every aspect of American culture in the twentieth century.' That's
a bigstatement, but this big book makes us believe it."
--Booklist, starred review "The great singer-actor contains
multitudes in this vast, engrossing biography of Frank Sinatra's
mature years... Kaplan's sympathetic but unflinching narrative
revels in the entertainer's scandalous private life while offering
rapt, insightful appreciations of his sublime recording and stage
performances. It situates him and his Rat Pack at the Vegas
headquarters of a postwar American culture that yoked mobsters and
prostitutes to Kennedys and other luminaries. His Sinatra is often
appalling, sometimes inspiring, and always a fascinating icon of an
energetic, resonant, yet doomed style of masculinity."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review "The meatiness of the material
justifies the length of the author's second (and concluding) volume
of his biography of Frank Sinatra (1915-1998). Just as his subject
matured into a far more compelling artist than the one who had
elicited squeals from bobby-soxers, the follow-up to Kaplan's
Frank: The Voice (2010) is far more substantial than that initial
volume.... An appropriately big book for an oversized artistic
presence."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review
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