The best-selling author of An Unquiet Mind now gives us a groundbreaking life of one of the major American poets of the twentieth century that is at the same time a fascinating study of the relationship between manic-depressive (bipolar) illness, creative genius, and character.
KAY REDFIELD JAMISON is a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as well as an honorary professor of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She is the author of the national best sellers An Unquiet Mind, Night Falls Fast, and Touched with Fire. She is coauthor of the standard medical text on manic-depressive illness and author or coauthor of more than one hundred scientific papers about mood disorders, creativity, and psychopharmacology. Dr. Jamison, the recipient of numerous national and international scientific awards, is a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow.
*Named a "Best Book of 2017" by The Boston Globe* "Groundbreaking .
. . A real contribution to the literary history of New England . .
. A case study of what a person with an extraordinary will, an
unwavering sense of vocation, and a huge talent . . . could and
could not do about the fact that the defining feature of his gift
was also the source of his suffering." --Dan Chiasson, The New
Yorker "Remarkable . . . Absorbing . . . Jamison approaches
Lowell's vexed life not only with scholarly authority but also with
literary talent and confidence . . . One reads this biography--so
full of incident--as one would read a novel, led by each page to
the next, fearing and hoping as one follows the excruciating
volatility of Lowell's life and the unpredictable evolution of his
art." --Helen Vendler, The New York Review of Books
"Impassioned . . . A remarkably poignant, in-depth . . . look at
the making of art." --Daphne Merkin. The Wall Street Journal
"Professor Jamison sets out to recuperate the reputation of the
poet, and of the man, an aim in which she succeeds triumphantly. .
. . [She is] a writer of rare elegance, distinction and, above all,
passion. Her introduction and the closing chapters are dazzling and
deeply moving, and would have been highly appreciated by her
subject, himself a fine prose stylist." --John Banville, The Irish
Times "Jamison, who has written powerfully about her own bipolar
disorder, argues in this gorgeous and unsettling book that the poet
should be lauded for heroic attempts to maintain his work and
relationships in the face of devastating mental illness." --Kent
Worcester, The Boston Globe "[A] journey into and alongside the
mind and poetry of the American poet Robert Lowell . . . An
illuminating and, at times, heartbreaking account . . . Jamison
does not dilute art to adorn science or try to bend science to art.
Instead, she unites scientific and artistic sensibilities in an
ambitious and honest effort to understand human experience."
--Caleb Gardner, The Lancet "One of the richest portraits ever
written of bipolar illness . . . People with mood disorders and
those who care about them are likely to experience a healing
reconsideration of their own experiences as they read this
wonderful book." --Burns Woodward, MD, Psychiatric Times "[Jamison]
focuses usefully on the part that mania played in Lowell's life and
career, and writes about his poetry with thrilling acumen."
--Meghan O'Rourke, The Atlantic
"A magnificent biography . . . Sympathetic, compassionate and often
lyrically stunning . . . My wariness of such psychobiographies is
that the subject will be reduced to a case study, all too tidily
explained. Jamison, however, preserves the mysteries." --Sam Coale,
The Providence Journal
"Kay Jamison brings together meticulous research into the factual
narrative of Lowell's life, an immensely sophisticated ability to
interpret his poetry, and a profound understanding of his mental
illness and its effect on everything else about him. Written in
prose that is often poetic and always acute, it is a poignant,
terrifying, and thrilling examination of the complex relationship
between genius and madness. It captures Lowell's electrifying
charm, his persistent elegance of thought, and the consuming chaos
of his despair. It is one of the finest biographies I have read."
--Andrew Solomon "Robert Lowell was a constantly searching,
restlessly inventive artist who courageously wrestled with bipolar
illness all his life. Kay Jamison's deeply considered, deeply
empathetic reading of Lowell's life and work gives us a
revolutionary, richly nuanced way of understanding both a major
writer's career and the sources and processes of creativity itself.
We needed this book." --Jonathan Galassi "Intellectually thrilling
. . . Achieves a magnificence and intensity that sets it apart . .
. Above all, the book demands that readers seriously engage with
its arguments, while also prodding them to reexamine their own
beliefs about art, madness, and moral responsibility." --Michael
Dirda, The Washington Post
"The best book so far about one of our most polarizing contemporary
literary figures." --Craig Teicher, Los Angeles Times "Seldom if
ever has there been such a neat match between author and subject as
in this penetrating study . . . Exceptionally nuanced." --Martin
Rubin, The Washington Times "[A] superb examination of manic
depression and its connection with creativity." --The Seattle
Times
"Jamison's understanding of literature is also 'fast, compound,
legendary'; she draws from a vast knowledge while disclosing this
larger than life poet who was loved, hated, and because of brain
chemistry, often misunderstood. In addition to the luminaries
quoted, her account is enhanced by memories offered by his daughter
Harriet Lowell, and the inclusion of previously unreleased medical
records that chart his, and his many relatives', experience with
mental illness." --Valerie Duff, The Boston Globe "A remarkable
look into the life and mind of a genius" --Matt McCarthy, USA
Today
"Incandescent writing . . . [Jamison] affirms her scholarship of
the highest order, analyzes the conjoined world of manic-depressive
illness and creativity with imagination, [and] demonstrates a
brilliant use of language and image . . . Her humanity and innate
generosity of spirit remind us of Menninger's injunction, 'When in
doubt, be human.'" -- Gordon Parker, American Journal of Psychiatry
"A landmark analysis of the disease that molded a brilliant man,
and an immensely moving book . . . [Robert Lowell] is the perfect
subject for Jamison's superb examination of manic depression and
its influence, for good and ill, on creativity." --Mary Ann Gwinn,
Booklist
"Jamison has constructed a novel and rewarding way to view Lowell's
life and output." --Publishers Weekly
"An intimate, sensitive, and perceptive account of the illness from
which poet Robert Lowell suffered most of his life." --Kirkus
Reviews "Finally, a book commensurate to the immensity that was
Robert Lowell. This is the soul that fires the poetry and prose,
the soul that his friends fell in love with. I'm happy that I've
lived long enough to read it." --Frank Bidart "A dazzling
combination: the brilliant Robert Lowell read by the brilliant Kay
Jamison, who writes a book for the ages: poignant, ambitious, and
big-hearted, about friendship, history, and the mad dance of mind
that Lowell faced with supreme courage, all the while producing
some of the most haunting lyrics of the twentieth century. Jamison
on Lowell: read it to learn, with humility, how to live." --Brenda
Wineapple "Reading Setting the River on Fire, I felt I was keeping
company with the man I knew, yet seeing him bathed in so many new
lights that I realized how little I had actually known him. In this
astonishingly multidimensional portrait of Robert Lowell, Jamison
makes him live and breathe, and restores to him the grandeur he
deserves. We can see her in him and him in her and, in the best
sense, Setting the River on Fire turns out to be an exhilarating
vicarious biography--something so rare as to be perhaps unique, a
biographer fully inhabiting the life of her subject in a way that
seems to the reader a life at once seen from a wise distance and
felt intimately at first-hand. --Jonathan Raban
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