The Sagebrush Bohemian

Book excerpt: Most people, including literary biographers and other people who should know better, have a persistent image of Mark Twain as a dyspeptic geezer in a white suit, sourly regarding the world from a rocking chair on his New England porch. Not surprisingly, when Nigey Lennon’s groundbreaking biography, "The Sagebrush Bohemian", originally presented its startlingly irreverent revelations about Twain’s formative years, it aroused a firestorm of controversy. Previous Twain biographers had virtually ignored the pivotal period (1861-1869) during which Samuel Clemens migrated to the Western territory; learned the craft of writing in newspaper offices, saloons, and worse places; visited the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands; became a public speaker; adopted (or misappropriated) his famous monicker; and acquired his trademark moustache. Beneath its breezy, eminently readable surface, "The Sagebrush Bohemian" digests acres of primary sources to provide a penetrating, ribald, and hilarious look at the origins of Mark Twain, not to mention the Zeitgeist of the lusty and lawless era that produced him. “[The Sagebrush Bohemian] offers an efficient and lighthearted introduction to the years in which Sam Clemens transformed himself into the writer who made the American language and American irreverence the stuff of literature.” -- The New York Times Book Review “With great good humor, Lennon recounts Twain’s acquisition of a craft lost in his counterparts today...a different look at Samuel Clemens.” -- Booklist “A delight to read.” -- San Francisco Review of Books