A fine, intense and detailed biography of US intellectual, essayist and novelist Susan Sontag.

Moser dug deep to show the complexity and contradictions of this woman. I can't remember who said that holding two contradictory concepts in the mind suggests adulthood. I am not sure that is the case, as with many, and Sontag, those contradictions are 'the child' and 'the adult'. Far more vulnerable than perceived from the outside, and this vulnerability leading, in later life especially, to bullying behaviour to those around her she was meant to love.

Unquestionably a fine if occasionally flawed mind. Time to revisit some of her essays. ( )

From the get go, there will be a feeling of here we go again as we pick up a few months after the first book. Ranger Darren must again investigate a case in the heart of Aryan Nation territory where he will be the outsider and the enemy in more ways than one. This time it is the son of the man he locked up in the first book. It will feel like more of the same...

But...

It is like having a great meal in the first book and the author invites you back the next day and the meal is just as great. Characters are not black and white. Every character has flaws and are fleshed out well. It doesn't rely on the trope of a black man investigating the aryan nation, but what does it mean to see each other as humans even as both are spitting bile at each other. How do you do your job and save a kid, even if that kid is taking the path of his father. It is so good. ( )

I am a fan of biographies that are well-written and this is one of the best. Moser weaves the details of Sontag's life in with the ideas that moved her to write in a way that reads like a beautiful novel. The result leaves the reader with the feeling that one knows her from the inside out and shares in her successes, her hesitations, and her ability to embrace the world of ideas as well as the visceral world of human relations. ( )

Was für ein fleißiges Werk, das akribisch und umfangreich Leben und Werk dieser außergewöhnlichen Intellektuellen beschreibt. Ich fand viele Punkte sehr aufschlussreich und habe das Buch gern gelesen. Susan Sontag ist definitiv eine komplexe, ja komplizierte Gestalt und befremdet mitunter ebenso, wie sie fasziniert. Ihr wunderbaren Taten (z.B. das Engagement für Salman Rushdie, das Engagement in Sarajevo) sind dazu angetan, jeden zu beschämen. Mir ist sie nahe gekommen und doch völlig fremd geblieben. Aber definitiv möchte ich von ihr nun auch etwas lesen. ( )

An exhaustive award winning study of one of the most complex women who ever lived. A darling of the New York literary society who for decades was a Jekyll and Hyde with the people who knew and loved her. She was driven in life by feelings of abandonment by her beautiful mother who was often absent. Sontag treated her son in the same way. She was a lovely woman who was never alone but felt lonely. After a short marriage producing her son all of her other meaningful personal relationships were with women. She would never admit to being bisexual. A really interesting read. ( )