Since a class I was taking required the reading of excerpts from this biography, I decided it might be a much better idea to read the entire book. By no means was that a wasted effort! This biography is very well written and opens up new vistas to readers of great fiction from the 20s and 30s.

Perkins was the editor for Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe. These are the three which get the bulk of print spent on them. You see that Perkins was much more than an editor and went to great lengths to help these writers discover as much of their potential as possible. He never wanted to credit for these and felt that the editor should always be hidden in the background.

Aside from the authors mentioned above, I found that Perkins also assisted authors like Bourjaily, Jones ("From Here to Eternity"), Rawlings ("The Yearling"), and Sherwood Anderson (although there was a bit of a falling out).

A. Scott Berg inserts a lot of information into the text, yet it is still very readable. Even in sections when I felt there was more Thomas Wolfe than needed, I still went through the book without wanting to put it down.

Even if you are not big into editing, just to hear a "behind-the-scenes" view of some of your favorite authors will make this book worthwhile to you.

If you are an admirer of F.Scott Fitzgerald, Ring Lardner, Thomas Wolfe, Earnest Hemingway, Marjorie Rawlings; basically any significant American writer of fiction during the first half of this century--buy the book. Here's how I would put it: If those authors could send ONE, just one posthumous request for you to purchase a particular book, "Perkins: Editor of Genius" would be my sincerely expected choice. Why? Because he wasn't just the "editor of genius": he was their friend. Maybe in some cases like Mr. Wolfe's, the only REAL friend of a lifetime. Fitzgerald wrote in his last years, " Max, you are the only person who has never lost faith in me." Even after Scott Fitzgerald's too short existence, Max was a warrior for a reputation which he confidently predicted would survive the fads of that time. This is a study for those of us who can only regret never meeting him, a study in accepting the short-comings of others with understanding; and demanding the best from ourselves. Words are cheapened by their use in describing Max, because their cousins are seen so often where the object is so less deserving, but buy the book. Mr Berg paints a wonderous, living picture, whose thousand words I believe venerable Perkins would have approved--if somewhat sheepishly.

What greater praise than the fact that I have spent 2 full day and into the night reading this book about a wonderful person who was a friend and confident to so many wonderful writers. I have read biographies of Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Wolfe and I had a paperback on Perkins but it became mislaid. I have read so many of their books and now want read them again as this biography has whetted my appetite.All the wonderful letters that are printed tell so much about these revered writers and tell how much they needed their wonderful editor.Wonderful book!