Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark

“A smart and eminently readable examination of the life and career of one of the twentieth century’s most influential movie critics.”—Los Angeles Times “Engrossing and thoroughly researched.”—Entertainment Weekly • A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2011 • The first major biography of the most influential, powerful, and controversial film critic of the twentieth centuryPauline Kael was, in the words of Entertainment Weekly's movie reviewer Owen Gleiberman, "the Elvis or Beatles of film criticism." During her tenure at The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991, she was the most widely read and, often enough, the most provocative critic in America. In this first full-length biography of the legend who changed the face of film criticism, acclaimed author Brian Kellow (author of Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood's First Superagent) gives readers a richly detailed view of Kael's remarkable life—from her youth in rural California to her early struggles to establish her writing career to her peak years at The New Yorker.

About the Author :
Brian Kellow is the author of Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood's First Superagent; Ethel Merman: A Life; The Bennetts: An Acting Family and the coauthor of Can’t Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell. His articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer, Opera, and other publications. Kellow lives in New York City.

Review :
“Illuminating.” —The New Yorker   “This affectionate biography makes her life and her passion for movies inseparable—and she could be difficult in both arenas.” —The Wall Street Journal (The Short List)   “[A] convincing narrative of how a brazen woman with a basically unattractive but flagrantly domineering personality molded herself into a writer who could not be ignored. . . . Mr. Kellow’s even-handed treatment gives us the woman in all her maddening overconfidence.” —Scott Eyman, The Wall Street Journal (Recommended Gift)   “To appreciate Kael’s trailblazing, you have to see it in its broader context. Luckily, that backdrop is filled in with surefooted sophistication by Brian Kellow in Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, a fair-minded and deeply reported Kael biography.” —Frank Rich, The New York Times Book Review   “[A] smart and incisive biography. . . . [Moviegoers] are in for a colossal eye-opening. [Kael’s] love for film has no present-day counterpart. . . . Mr. Kellow’s clear, independent view of his subject is his book’s most valuable surprise. . . . Kael liked to disparage what she called ‘saphead objectivity.’ Bur Mr. Kellow is no saphead, and he makes objectivity a great virtue.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times   “[Pauline Kael] got into my bloodstream more than any other critic. So I have been waiting most of my life for a smart, insightful biography like [Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark] to take me beyond and beneath the hypnotic thrill of her prose.” —Ben Brantley, The New York Times (Critic’s Pick)   “[Brian] Kellow has written a fair-minded and deeply reported biography of the provocative, brilliant and maddening writer whose essays about movies transformed American pop-culture criticism.” —The New York Times (Editors’ Choice blurb)   “[A] fascinating new biography. . . . [Kellow] captures her best passages and most heartless insults and puts them in context.” —Richard Schickel and Laurie Winer, Los Angeles Review of Books   “A smart and eminently readable examination of the life and career of one of the twentieth century’s most influential movie critics.” —Los Angeles Times   “[Kellow] brings a wise and sweeping vision to her artistic mentality and her enduring legacy.” —The Washington Times   “[An] entertaining and insightful biography, as much a study of her criticism as a narrative of her life. . . . [Pauline] Kael emerges from [Kellow’s] biography as a great cinematic character, a kind of Citizen Kane, with a life lived and shaped by the dark.” —Elaine Showalter, The Times Literary Supplement   “Engrossing and thoroughly researched.” —Entertainment Weekly   “Kellow has reconstructed Kael’s ‘life in the dark’. . . . The result is a joy to read. . . . it’s a fascinating book.” —Los Angeles Magazine   “[E]xhaustively researched, beautifully written. . . . Kellow has told [Kael’s] life in incredible detail. . . . I found the book enthralling because it vividly recreates a world I was part of, which seems now very distant. It is also because Kellow has been generous in quoting her sensuous, percussive, often wise prose. . . . Pauline was a galvanizing presence, and Kellow has brought her back with overwhelming intensity.” —Howard Kissel, Huffington Post   “Absorbing.” —The Toronto Star   “Kellow, an erudite movie lover . . . writes beautifully and dexterously interweaves the story of a career long-thwarted with a sensitive reading of [Kael’s] youthful enthusiasm and intellectual growth. To an impressive degree, he gets inside the head of a precocious, fearsomely smart young woman from small-town California and is able to describe what drove her, which authors turned her on (James, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, Melville, Woolf, Proust), her love of jazz and her distaste for aesthetic, religious and political dogma. So thoroughly does he portray the development of Pauline’s character and passionate engagement with matters aesthetic that it comes as no surprise she was able to burst onto the scene, at the relatively advanced age of 48, as one of the most dynamic cultural arbiters of the past century. . . . Kellow admirably brings Pauline’s wit, insight and passion to life on the page and has made at least one critic nostalgic for the days when heavyweight critical battles raged and at least one of us lived a life worthy of a biography. . . . [An] excellent biography.” —Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter   “I fell on Kellow’s book like a teenage girl on a lost volume of the Twilight saga and found it quite as riveting as teens find anything to do with Bella.” —Mary Pols, San Francisco Chronicle   “At last, a biography of the highly influential New Yorker film critic.” —San Francisco Chronicle (Holiday Gift Guide)   “Brian Kellow’s biography of [Pauline Kael] is a fascinating and enlightening read. . . . I’m savoring every page.” —Whitney Matheson, USA Today   “The [present] I hope someone will send me is Brian Kellow’s Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark.” —Philip French, The Observer (UK) (Christmas 2011 Gift Guide)   “Compelling.” —The Onion A.V. Club   “[A] rich, thorough, and admirably fair biography.” —Entertainment Weekly, (Best Nonfictions Books of 2011)   “Kael was the Elvis Presley of movie criticism.” —The Boston Globe   “[A] smashing first biography of the famed New Yorker critic.” —The Buffalo News   “[A] richly detailed biography.” —Maclean’s   “Throws radiant light on the renowned movie critic . . . though and well-written” —David Finkle, Huffington Post   “[M]eticulously researched.” —Slate.com   “[A] terrific new biography . . . [Her early life ] was a revelation to me, thanks to Kellow’s ace research.” —Salon.com   “[A] finely balanced biography. . . . not only will you not be disappointed with Kellow’s intrepid research, you’ll also be rewarded by his rich, close reading of her reviews (and the stories behind the writing of them) that does marvelous justice to Pauline Kael’s exhilarating gift for writing on the movies. Both her admirers and her detractors could not have asked for a more satisfying biography.” —The Hindu   “Fun, fair, and fluently written, [Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark] is an edifying read.” —The Dallas Morning News   “Mr. Kellow throws a great deal of light on the famous critic’s heretofore mysterious ways.” —The Portland Mercury   “In Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, author Brian Kellow offers a making-of story as engaging as her criticism. It’s not easy feat—what’s less dramatic than scribbling into the night?—but Kellow tapped her friends and foes and her writing while developing a colorful, even handed appreciation of one of film’s most influential critics. . . . [An] eye-opening biography.” —Associated Press   “Kael was a master at interpretation, and [Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark] is a highly successful interpretation of the storied critic. . . . A must-read for any devotee of film; compellingly written and recommended for all libraries.” —Library Journal (Starred Review)   “In his fluent, immensely readable study, Kellow fairly represents Kael’s tendency to hyperbole (writing of Barbra Streisand or Last Tango in Paris) as well as hurtful ad hominem (George Cukor’s Rich and Famous; Shoah).” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)   “Kellow performs biographical magic, telling [Kael’s] story mostly through her most famous (and notorious) reviews of some of the landmark films of the ‘60s and ‘70s.” —Kirkus (Starred Review)   “For a biography to do justice to a complex personality and a great mind such as Kael’s, extensive research must be matched by acute perception. That requirement is fully, even joyously, met here. . . . Kellow fleshes out these major stags as well as formative minor ones in a greatly revelatory portrait that will stand as the definitive one.” —Booklist (Starred Review)   “Kellow matches extensive research with acute perception in his sensitive and definitive biography of Pauline Kael, America’s foremost, and most controversial, movie critic.” —Booklist (Top 10 Arts Books of 2011)   “The fact that most of us know little about [Kael’s] upbringing of her private life makes this an especially intriguing biography.” —Leonard Maltin, Movie Crazy   “Compelling . . . thrillingly written and exhaustively researched. . . . genius.” —Drew Taylor, The Playlist   “Kellow evocatively captures the blooming of film culture in the early 1960s, and the sobriety with which Kael took over the critical pulpit. . . . Kellow not only grasps the significance of his subject, but invokes the pace and energy of [Kael’s] singular style. . . . good, dishy fun.” —Village Voice   “[An] excellent new biography.” —Sense of Cinema   “Kael often reveled in movies she thought were a mess, just as anyone who reads Brian Kellow’s incisive, detailed biography of America’s most impassioned and influential movie critic, Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, is sure to be absorbed, sucked in, by Kael’s cluttered hodge-podge of a life—personally, professionally, emotionally, aesthetically. . . . There is so much packed into Kellow’s rich book . . . that her life story seems an epic script.” —American Spectator   “Perhaps the most valuable thing about Brian Kellow’s fine new book about [Pauline] Kael, A Life in the Dark, is that, aside from its virtues as a sympathetic, clear-eyed and sharp biography, is that it’s a really fine cultural and social document of a turning point in movie history.” —Special Broadcasting Service (Australia)   “Brian Kellow’s biography Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark wisely charts Kael’s life by focusing on her writing.” —Ploughshares   “[Pauline Kael is an] entertaining and insightful biography.” —Redroom.com   “[Pauline Kael is an] excellent Biography.” —TheHumanist.org   “[Brian] Kellow finds the emotional core of [Pauline] Kael’s persona. . . . Kellow is quickly becoming a film fan’s dream biographer. . . . That Kellow chooses to write in calm, unshowy prose is both astute as a journalistic technique and integral to the book’s aesthetic success. . . . Kellow’s Kael transcends mere artistic contrarianism and resembles a sort of impassioned duelist.” —Celluloid Void