Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme

Hiding Man, Tracy Daugherty's biography of Donald Barthelme, is an investigation of the education of an artistic sensibility. Barthelme never actually finished college, though he may have had enough credits for two BAs. The twelve years of Barthelme's life from eighteen to thirty are a long apprenticeship, working in journalism as his hero Hemingway did; going to Korea with the army and mostly reading; writing speeches for the president of the University of Houston; managing a great small magazine, Forum; directing the Houston Museum of Contemporary Art; moving to New York to run an art magazine for Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess. He didn't publish his own writing until he was well past 30. He really did read all of western Philosophy (as he told young writers to do for their own apprenticeships), as well as prodigiously in literature, before finally turning out his own product (he destroyed much of his "juvenile" writing, nearly all of what he'd done in his twenties). Any young writer would profit from a close study of Hiding Man, paying particular heed to what Barthelme read and asked family to send him when he was in the army in Korea--and to how he read, spider fashion from one book to the webs of other books connected to central texts. Daugherty's book is also an immensely sad story of a high functioning alcoholic and son of a fascinating, demanding, autocratic modernist architect father, whose regard and approval Barthelme never fully received or understood. Still, Hiding Man is instructive and heartening. This is how to describe a writer's life--tactfully, with the fiction as models for efficiency as well as for information about his life. The great surprise of Hiding Man is how much autobiography is available in Donald Barthelme's beautiful, quizzical, puzzle-piece stories and novels. This is a great book.

I can't imagine a better person to have written this first-rate biography of Donald Barthelme than Tracy Daugherty, who has brought his perspectives as writer, scholar, protege, friend, and person of integrity to bear on the artful revelation of one of our most important writers. Daugherty gives us a felt sense of the questions that drove Barthelme to become who he was and to make breakthroughs in language and consciousness. A student of Barthelme's at the same time as Tracy Daugherty, I can attest to his portrayal of Barthelme as mentor--demanding, generous, wise. But what fascinates me now, years later, is understanding Barthelme in the context of his time and as a shaper of new realities. Barthelme loved to put "a new thing into the world," and I can almost hear his clipped approval of Daugherty's biography of him, in all his complexity, brilliance, and humanness.

This is an excellent biography -- dense, detailed, insightful. I have waited years and years for just such an in-depth study. Donald Barthelme definitely deserves the attention. He is America's Calvino. I studied writing under both his brothers, but Don B. has always held a deep fascination for me. He was an amazing writer and shook up the literary world. I highly recommend this book. Now, let's go back and read his collected works.

I finished this over the weekend, in a matter of days after I picking it up, & I found it nothing short of masterly. Tracy Daugherty begins w/ a crucial understanding, namely, that Donald Barthelme's life & career set a challenge for American imaginative literature, for what it holds valuable. So this entire espresso-rich compendium of pertinent life-detail -- reaching back to the founding of Houston & of Greenwich Village, to the structure & symbolism of Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, to the place of Andromache & Penelope in Homeric myth -- the entire book -- neglecting none of Barthelme's busy family, none of his stabs at reporting, at teaching, at art-curating, collage-making, radio-writing, jazz-playing, & none of his heavy drinking either, & certainly neglecting none of his many wives & lovers, a number of them (like Grace Paley) superb artists themselves -- still the entire biography never gets far from its argument. Barthelme's work, in Daugherty's ever-sensitive assessments, never lacks for the *edge* that drove it. As a writer, he was always up against the prevailing powers, & always subverting them w/ wit, intelligence, surprise, & a "golden ear" (to borrow the expression several of the former lovers & friends in this book find themselves using). In HIDING MAN Barthelme has a life-story worthy of the struggle to which he, all light-heartedly, dedicated his vocation. Anyone seeking to matter in the arts could learn from the fascinating, scrupulous, & highly humane scholarship Daugherty brings off here.

This biography is a well researched, fascinating account of an American original. It reads like a novel, but also has the scholarship and insight into Barthelme's work that one would demand. It's also a personal and moving portrait since the author knew Barthelme at one point during his life. I highly recommend this. Should get noticed for awards and certainly deserves to be read for its pleasure.