From Publishers Weekly
As much a rebuttal as it is a biography, Tolstoy's biography of the twentieth century British novelist's life proves both unusually insightful and distractingly biased. The author's relationship to his subject is revealed up front: Tolstoy was O'Brian's stepson through a second marriage and a "frequent correspondent with the reclusive author" before his death in January 2000, an association that provides Tolstoy with a trove of untapped source material in the form of personal letters and family papers. More impressive, perhaps, is Tolstoy's encyclopedic knowledge of his stepfather's work, which he employs at almost every turn to demonstrate the largely autobiographical nature of O'Brian's fiction. Too often, though, Tolstoy's analysis resorts to speculation, and, given the writer's potential conflict of interest, such uncertainties are impossible to ignore. Hanging over Tolstoy's work from page one is a previous biography, Dean King's Patrick O'Brian: A Life, an unflattering and possibly flawed portrayal of the historical novelist that turns on his mid-century decision to walk out on his first family. Here, Tolstoy tries to set the record straight by providing a more nuanced view of his stepfather's choices and eccentricities. Unfortunately, each moment of clarification is accompanied by a moment in which Tolstoy, routinely name-checking King's biography, falls into the role of an apologist. The tragedy is that O'Brian is a fascinating subject because of his faults, shortcomings and quirks, not in spite of them, as Tolstoy would seem to believe.
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From Booklist
How did Patrick Russ, doctor's son, become Patrick O'Brian, writer? Tolstoy, his stepson, relies heavily on family papers and autobiographical elements in O'Brian's early works (his first novel was published when he was 12). An unhappy childhood fostered both deep insecurity and intense imagination, and O'Brian's interest in natural history and in the eighteenth century ("the happy land into which he escaped") helped lay the groundwork for the Aubrey/Maturin series, for which he is best known. Although Tolstoy doesn't downplay his stepfather's eccentricities of character (including his disavowal of his family and his claim to be Irish), he seeks to offer a corrective to Dean King's
Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed (2000)
,which depended much on contributions from the bitter son of O'Brian's first marriage. This detailed and thoughtful account ends more than 20 years before the publication of
Master and Commander (1990), so readers looking for more-specific background on the Aubrey/-Maturin series may be disappointed. Perhaps there is a later volume to come.
Mary Ellen QuinnCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
