I've been dipping back into one of my favorite author bios these past few days: Roy Hoopes's Cain: The Biography of James M. Cain. It's a big, meaty hardcover that is so detailed, you swear you can hear Cain talking to you, makes jokes, telling you about his life. It's fun to just roll around in for 5o pages at a time. I love author bios, in general. They make me feel just that little bit more sane...Some of my other favorties, off the top of my head, in no particular order:
Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson by Robert Polito
Willeford by Don Herron
Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die by Francis M. Nevins
Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick by Lawrence Sutin
The Life of Ian Fleming by John Pearson
The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman
The Life of Raymond Chandler by Frank McShane
Ross Macdonald by Tom Nolan
Martians and Misplaced Clues: The Life and Work of Fredric Brown by Jack Seabrook
Dashiell Hammett: A Life by Diane Johnson
Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett by Richard Layman
Dean Koontz: A Writer's Biography by Katherine Ramsland
Stephen King: The Art of Darkness by Douglas E. Winter
Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic by Douglas E. Winter
Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante by Stephen Cooper
Will Eisner: A Spirited Life by Bob Andelman
Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life by Howard Sounes
I'm still waiting for an English translation of Phillipe Garnier's Goodis, la Vie en Noir et Blanc. (Or, I'll have to get around to learning French one of these days.) I'd also kill for a good Mickey Spillane bio. Or a Horace McCoy, Charles Williams, Paul Cain, Donald Westlake...
Are there any author bios you'd recommend?
