Before there was Jimmy Breslin, there was Damon Runyon: A writer who kept company with gangsters and gamblers, politicians and showgirls, sports figures and cops. Breslin, a very gifted writer, dissects his subject with humor. The heroes of Runyon's world were figments of his imagination. He was enthralled with gangsters, adopting their street language himself. He romanticized the worst among him. He drank heavily and smoked heavily; eventually giving up the booze for waterfalls of coffee. It was too late for the cigarettes. Toward the end of his life, Runyon communicated by writing notes, his vocal chords having succumbed to cancer. This book is a gem. You come away knowing much more about Runyon the person and his times: New York City during the glamorous 1920's. A time made-up by one Damon Runyon. Breslin remains the best at what he does.

At first, this biography on Damon Runyon seems like any other biography: a list of dates, names, people, and places. As you start reading it, though, it becomes a story that puts you right in the middle of Runyon's life, the good and the bad. You'll see Runyon's start in poetry, sportswriting, war reporting, and what he is most well-known for: his short stories. Also, you'll see the people in Runyon's life who he based some of his most Runyonesque characters on, and people who based their lives off of his characters. This book reads more like a Runyonesque story than a biography, which makes it so interesting to read, besides the fact that it gives a glimpse into the life of the very private Damon Runyon.

If you really want to know Rothko, read Dore Ashton. Breslin tends to simplify things and I don't think that he really loves Rothko or has communicated with the paintings. Only for die-hard Rothkoites like me.

No book can do Mark Rothko justice. He painted on large
canvases. To know him is to confront his original work
on the wall before you. Find your distance, 10, 15,
maybe 30 feet back. Yet to make sense of his
colored rectangles tearing themselves apart in fission,
as well as his earlier, quite different work, some
background helps.

Breslin's book will become the standard reference, but
not perhaps the starting point. He writes engrossingly,
but the 558 pages of text, I fear, will discourage the
casual reader (who might do well to read Robert
Hughes's paragraphs in American Visions).

Still, for the motivated reader, James Breslin's bio is
awesome. The Latvian Jew, charity student at
antisemitic Yale in the early 20s, uncomfortable and
smarter than most there, comes alive, as does his love
for children and their art, as well as his tormented
first marriage to a wife commercially successful during
the Great Depression making jewelry that sold. Rothko
had higher ambitions: fine art spelled with a capital
"A". As Breslin relates, discomfort never disappeared.
Success and recognition did not go over well with
this self-described anarchist who, as a Portland
teenager, enthusiastically took in lectures by Emma
Goldman. Overall, Breslin provides a biographical and
historical foundation with which to understand Mark
Rothko's painting. I am grateful for that.

Finally, of the many biographies I've read, James EB
Breslin's stands out for another reason: in his
Afterword, he turns from Rothko to himself and
addresses his own motivations and challenges in writing
the biography. Biographies are never "objective", so it
makes sense that a biographer might address his own
motivations. In the descriptions of the dangers of
doing research in Rothko's birthplace of Dvinsk, in
interviewing art historian Clement Greenberg, Rothko
reappears again, this time indirectly, one step
removed. That Breslin can bring Rothko alive in these

different contexts is testament to the enduring value
of this long, challenging biography.

Within the power of a single Rothko painting is the power to inspire a deeply rich volume of subtle and large meanings. Breslin offers a non-stop flight through the creative intelligence and expressed worlds of Rothko. The reader is met with a gorgeous poetic escape from the mundane reality of worldly distress. Breslin could not have had more success. To read this book is to enter a cathedral: one finds reverence in the read and in the self. Rothko's suicide seems like a scribble on the wall. The wall may remain forever marred. The bitter marks, and this book, evoke so many lost possibilities for the artist and his audience.