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Granted complete independence and access, Bailey spent almost ten years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and listening to Roth's own breathtakingly candid confessions. Cynthia Ozick, in her front-page rave for theNew York Times Book Review, described Bailey's monumental biography as 'a narrative masterwork...As in a novel, what is seen at first to be casual chance is revealed at last to be a steady and powerfully demanding drive...under Bailey's strong light what remains on the page is one writer's life as it was lived, and  almost  as it was felt.'  Though Roth is generally considered an autobiographical novelist - his alter-egos include not only the Roth-like writer Nathan Zuckerman, but also a recurring character named Philip Roth - relatively little is known about the actual life on which so vast an oeuvre was supposedly based. 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Blake Bailey grew up in the shadow of his father, Burck, an eminent litigator—president of the Oklahoma Bar Association and widely considered a sort of real-life Atticus Finch: “His conduct, honesty, integrity, and courtesy best exemplify and represent the highest standards of the legal profession,” his colleagues commended him in a 1989 award citation.    As for Blake, he was a late bloomer who finally came into his own as a writer. His fourth literary biography, Philip Roth, was published on April 6, 2021, and hailed as “a narrative masterwork” by Cynthia Ozick on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. The 900-page book debuted at #12 on the Times Nonfiction Bestseller list.    But success came at a terrible price: because of revelations in Bailey’s biography, many were calling for Roth and his work to be “canceled,” while others thought Bailey had been overly sympathetic and even “complicitous” with his subject’s worst failings. Soon rumors exploded on the internet about Bailey’s own private life, and within days he himself was roundly canceled.   Canceled Lives is the story of a father and son who had much in common—for better and for worse—and who supported each other in the midst of terrible family strife, including the drug addiction and suicide of Blake’s older brother, Scott. Having achieved a success in life that Blake, at least, never expected, both father and son were ravaged by the ordeal of Blake’s spectacular public humiliation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51414699442449,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51414699475217,"sku":"NGR9781510783317","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52606718837009,"sku":"NIN9781510783317","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53141149417745,"sku":"CIN1510783318G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1510783318.jpg?v=1781171087"},{"product_id":"farther-wilder-book-blake-bailey-9780307273581","title":"Farther \u0026 Wilder","description":"\u003cp\u003eCharles Jackson's novel \u003ci\u003eThe Lost Weekend\u003c\/i\u003e--the story of five disastrous days in the life of an alcoholic--was published in 1944 to triumphant success. 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This is the fascinating biography of a writer whose life and work encapsulated what it meant to be an addict and a closeted homosexual in mid-century America, and who was far ahead of his time in bringing these forbidden subjects into the popular discourse.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51681428635921,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51681428963601,"sku":"GOR008982573","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52447578554641,"sku":"CIN030727358XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53267038208273,"sku":"CIN030727358XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/030727358X.jpg?v=1751005065"},{"product_id":"grandfather-s-advice-book-blake-bailey-9781665574389","title":"Grandfather's Advice","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53521710579985,"sku":"NLS9781665574389","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781665574389.jpg?v=1778455323"},{"product_id":"zapatista-book-blake-bailey-9781665574969","title":"Zapatista","description":"Blake's second novel, Zapatista, is faithfully based on the facts of the 1994 Chiapas Indian uprising in southern Mexico. Whether looking for an adventure story or a deeper look into the real drama of a people's revolution, you'll find that in Zapatista. Peter, the protagonist, running from devastating life events and the associated guilt involved, finds himself in the heart of the Sierra Madre hoping to drink, write, and find adventure in that order. But Peter gets more adventure than bargained for through a series of whirlwind circumstances that hurl him into the middle of a life and death struggle for a revolutionary cause and the love of Lxil, an Indian woman, both catalysts that forever change Peter's life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53522953208081,"sku":"NLS9781665574969","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781665574969.jpg?v=1778460497"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-blake-bailey.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}