The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West (review)

Whether readers are well versed in Twain's prose or can claim little more than recognition of his name, Fleischman has much to offer them in this freewheeling biography. With fleeting attention to the drier data required for book reports (most of that, in fact, is best accessed through the appended timeline), Fleischman focuses on episodes from Clemens'/Twain's peripatetic career, particularly those he spun into his comedy-laced lectures and incorporated into his stories and novels. A verbal showman in his own right, Fleischman is inclined to let Twain have his unedited say, and then straighten out the facts in his own good time, which may not occur in some cases until his final chapter, "The Truth, More or Less." What truly sets this biography in a class by itself, though, is how enthusiastically Fleischman assumes Twain's tone of humbuggery to play the warm-up act for his subject's texts ("It was commonly held on the freshly plowed frontier that anyone who could count to twenty without taking off his shoes was qualified to teach school") and the deep respect with which he treats Twain's personal demons and social critique. Plenty of illustrations and photographs pepper the presentation, and end matter includes quote citations, an index, and, as a welcome bonus, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."