RARA-AVIS: Herron
Levin, Doug (DLEVIN@DIRECTIMPACT.COM)
Thu, 19 Feb 1998 14:41:33 -0500
I'll put in my two cents--biased as it is. I am grateful to
Herron; he
has done a lot of leg work for me. The book is very much an
exuberant
fan's notes, which is what I had expected. Somewhere--maybe
on
McMillan's web page--the book was described as an
"appreciation," not a
biography per se. There is some good biographical info, but
also some
gaps. At the same time, I find biographies can be tedious by
providing
too much information, and that is not so much the case here.
There are
stories--e.g.,Willeford as a terrible driver--which are great
fun, and
would not likely make it into a traditional biography. I might
have
liked a little more cultural analysis and a sharper literary
geneology,
but again Herron makes no pretense that he is doing such work.
The book
could use some edits (in the main text and the interview
sections) and
an index, but it has a strong bibliography. Finally, I think it
is
worth mentioning the economics of such a project. I presume no
one is
getting rich on this book and that Herron sunk an enormous
amount of
time and energy into it. It's a work that would never be
published by a
big house, I imagine. I'm glad it saw the light of day.
Doug Levin
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