Based on much heretofore unavailable archival material and access to close relations, and extraordinary for the diligence of its scholarship, the unsparingness of its scope, and the engaging clarity of its prose, this booktraces not only Bellow's rise to literary eminence--from the roots of his family in St. Petersburg, Russia, to his birth and childhood in Quebec to his years in Chicago and at the University of Chicago, to right before the breakout commercial success of his novel Herzog in 1964--but also Bellow's life away from the desk, which was rich with incident. In the mornings he wrote; in the afternoons, he went out and got into trouble. Often this trouble involved women--spirited, intelligent, beautiful women. And more : throughout we are given fresh and fulsome readings of Bellow's work, from his early writings and debut novel Dangling Man to Herzog.