Description: "My story is not one of life and death, but of love and work," Robert Kanigel says in his new memoir, Young Man, Muddled. It is also a story deeply rooted in the city - and the culture - of Baltimore. Kanigel invites the reader back in time with him as he reconstructs his meandering, often haphazard journey from straight-laced, dull engineer to renowned writer. Kanigel's memoir is a timely look at how an underappreciated giant of biographies, essays, and science writing found his way into the field, and is a piece of encouragement for budding and unlikely writers alike.
Brief description: ROBERT KANIGEL is the author of nine previous books, most recently Hearing Homers Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry and, before that, Eyes on the Street, his biography of Jane Jacobs. He has received many awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship, the Grady-Stack Award for science writing, and an NEH Public Scholar grant. His book T he Man Who Knew Infinity was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; it has been translated into more than a dozen languages and was the basis for the film of the same name starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel. Kanigel and his wife, the poet S. B. Merrow, live in Baltimore.
Review Quotes:
"In his sensitive debut memoir, essayist, biographer, and nonfiction writer Kanigel (b. 1946) recounts his life in the 1960s, crucial years when the Vietnam War roiled the country and he confronted his unsettled future... Thoughtful, candid reminiscences from a veteran writer."
―KIRKUS REVIEWS
"In his absorbing memoir, the acclaimed journalist Robert Kanigel finally turns his keen eye on himself, taking the reader on his journey from shy youth in the conformist 1950s to full-blooded personhood in the liberating tumult of the 1960s and leaving us just as he starts what was to be a long and brilliant writing career. Tender, reflective, witty, rueful, always honest, and always good company, Kanigel reveals himself with eloquent simplicity and rare candor. A tour de force of self-examination, Young Man, Muddled opens a window onto the origin story of an extraordinary life."
--ELLEN PALL, AUTHOR, MUST READ WELL
"Kanigel is a great biographer. He has a marvelous gift for finding interesting characters and using them to reveal the world in which they lived, and which they usually helped to shape. In this book, he trains his sights on himself. Writing with revealing honesty and marvelous grace, he uses the story of his own life to illuminate an important moment in American life."
--CHARLES DUFF, AUTHOR, THE NORTH ATLANTIC CITIES