Mark Twain: a book review

Just finished Ron Chernow’s biography of Samuel Clemens, “Mark Twain.” I had previously read his biographies of John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton, so I knew I would like this book. In addition, I attended an interview he gave in Harford during his book tour, and he made me look forward to reading the book that came with the ticket.

This biography clocks in at over 1000 pages, not counting the acknowledgements and end notes. It is clearly intended as an historical reference and is lavish with unnecessary details. But it is clear that Chernow likes and admires his subject. Even when exposing the dark and even cruel side of the man, he mills down the edges with justifications that temper Twain’s occasional harshness.

Twain was a man of his time. Born into American apartheid, he only gradually came to appreciate the plight of Black people in America. He was curiously much more sympathetic to Chinese people and to Jews. On the other hand, he had a lifelong contempt for Native Americans. Before he was a writer, he worked in a printer’s shop in St. Louis. He was a failed miner in California and a successful riverboat captain on the lower Mississippi River. 

Chernow gives an excellent account of most of Twain’s books and his most popular short stories. But what comes out clearly is Twain’s humanity. He was devoted to his wife. He delighted in his daughters when they were young but became estranged as they became adults. He outlived his wife and all but one of his children. Unlike most men of his era, Twain was impatient with piety and intolerant of religion, but he could leaven his hostility with humor.

I found the pacing of the narrative a bit slow in the middle of the book, but Chernow makes effective use of anecdotes to enliven even the slower sections. Overall, I recommend this book. It is long, but I came away with a deep appreciation of one of America’s greatest literary figures.