Description: First published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, New York in 2017.
Review Quotes: One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, and The Times Literary Supplement
"Superb." --Pulitzer Prize Board "Remarkable. . . . One reads this biography--so full of incident--as one would read a novel." --The New York Review of Books"Groundbreaking. . . . A case study of what a person with an extraordinary will, an unwavering sense of vocation, and a huge talent . . . could and could not do about the fact that the defining feature of his gift was also the source of his suffering." --The New Yorker
"One of the finest biographies I have read." --Andrew Solomon "Impassioned, intellectually thrilling. . . . Empathetic and astute, as heartfelt as it is heartbreaking." --The Washington Post "Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire is a study in one genius reaching back in time to unpack the psyche of another." --Vanity Fair "Jamison has amassed a wealth of fascinating research about Lowell, which should serve scholars for years to come. . . . But perhaps it is Jamison's personal take on mania that is finally most valuable. She knows the disease from bittersweet experience. She's been obsessed and absorbed by it." --The New York Times Book Review "A remarkably poignant, in-depth . . . look at the making of art under often hair-raising circumstances. [Jamison] doesn't skimp on the damage Lowell caused, both to himself and others, when he was at his worst, which makes the insistent re-emergence of his best self an act worth marveling at, as courageous and full of stamina in its way as that of any war hero." --The Wall Street Journal "Finally, a book commensurate to the immensity that was Robert Lowell. This is the soul that fires the poetry and prose, the soul that his friends fell in love with." --Frank Bidart "Ambitious . . . penetrating. . . . Absorbing. . . . [Jamison] approaches Lowell's vexed life not only with scholarly authority but also with literary talent and confidence." --The New York Review of Books "A book for the ages: poignant, ambitious, and bighearted, about friendship, history, and the mad dance of mind that Lowell faced with supreme courage." --Brenda Wineapple "Jamison's understanding of literature is . . . 'fast, compound, legendary'; she draws from a vast knowledge while disclosing this larger than life poet who was loved, hated, and because of brain chemistry, often misunderstood." --The Boston Globe "A remarkable look into the life and mind of a genius." --USA Today "A writer of rare elegance, distinction and, above all, passion. . . . Dazzling and deeply moving. . . . The cost of making art, and how much of it the artist and those around him should have to bear, is the deep subject of Kay Jamison's magnificent study of a brilliant, wounded and lavishly gifted man." --John Banville, The Irish Times "Beautifully written. . . . Achieves a magnificence and intensity. . . . The book demands that readers seriously engage with its arguments. . . . Exhilarating." --The Washington Post