James Thurber: His Life and Times

by Harrison Kinney

A biography of the New Yorker author and cartoonist examines Thurber's work and life, including his relationships with women, his eventual blindness and his subtle sense of humor

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started volunteering at a James Thurber museum a few years ago. I regularly give visitors tours of the home that he and his family lived in when he was enrolled in college. And I really like the well-researched tour I deliver. I’ve crafted it over the years into something I, at least, find engaging and interesting. But I’m always looking for more information, so I finally bought Harrison Kinney’s definitive thousand-page Thurber biography. And boy, is it exhaustive. It begins in 1799 (nearly 100 years after Thurber was born), when Thurber’s great-great-grandfather moves to Ohio. It ends, basically, two centuries later, three decades after James’s death, when Kinney is still interviewing people who had known Thurber. It includes more anecdotes than you know what to do with. More than Kinney knew what to do with, it seems. Kinney describes summer get-togethers Thurber had with friends—probably a fun time, but not adding anything of substance to the story of one’s life. Kinney devotes not just lines or paragraphs but often an entire page or two to several brief, pointless anecdotes. One full chapter describes some of the pranks James played on friends. I don’t blame Kinney for including everything, but I also would’ve preferred it if he had killed some of his darlings. When he begins to speculate about James’s paternal grandfather, in the absence of verifiable facts, you wonder whether a grandpa James didn’t even know is important enough to include in the first place. His chapters about the New Yorker (admittedly an important part of Thurber’s life story—probably the most important part) add very little that wasn’t included in Thurber’s own book “My Years With Ross” about the magazine’s editor-in-chief. (If it does add something, it’s clarifying misleading items Thurber included in his account…but the book also frequently falls for Thurber’s tall tales, and includes so many unlikely anecdotes that they couldn’t possibly have all been true.) One begins to wonder whether even a Thurber diehard wouldn’t begin to flip pages when the writing begins to drag. Kinney also bounces around the timeline in order to stay on a subject. An early chapter about James’s father mentions James’s second wife, even before we knew about his first. A chapter ostensibly about James’s early life devolves into a full biography of his brother William. I knew enough already to follow along, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a newcomer found the biography completely inaccessible. I learned a lot, but I had the feeling afterward that, armed with all the same information, I could’ve crafted a more comprehendible story of James Thurber’s life (and probably in a book that didn’t weigh twenty pounds). But, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, you’ll never learn more about James Thurber than you will reading this biography. And isn’t that the point?

9/10

[Joe Faust · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burton Bernstein's 1975 sizable biography, Thurber: A Biography, seems to have vanished from the face of the earth, and perhaps that's a good thing. Thurber survivors weren't happy with it, as it portrayed James Thurber as abusive, a mean drunk with a cruel sense of humor. This volume is without (apparently; I haven't read the Bernstein book) the editorializing. Author Kinney lays the facts out in a loving manner and lets you come to conclusions yourself.

And the conclusion is that James Thurber was abusive, a mean drunk with a cruel sense of humor. But there were mitigating factors. He wasn't an alcoholic. But he did like his booze, though. A lot. And it lit him up, unleashing his combative nature for which he was properly penitent in the wake of a hangover. And those later years? He was dealing with blindness, a runaway thyroid, and a brain tumor the size of a tangerine.

Still, this is a good case for never meet your heroes. Thurber was apparently charismatic enough that his constant practical jokes, his insults over imagined slights and his tendency to overstay his welcome were routinely forgiven by family, friends, and circle of friends. Although I doubt I would have put up with him like they did (honestly, how did Sheldon Cooper's friends put up with him for 12 seasons?).

I don't think there's much room for error in this volume. Harrison Kinney knew Thurber and has exhaustively - and I do mean exhaustively - researched the man's life. One of his interviewees was Thurber's dentist, fercryinoutloud. But it all puts Thurber's life into context.

Speaking of context, there's a great deal in this volume about The New Yorker magazine. Of course there is. No New Yorker, no Thurber. And vice versa. There are long Thurberless digressions about the life and workings of the magazine that made him famous, but it doesn't distract.

This book is a masterwork, and a master class in the art of biography. Curmudgeon that Thurber became, this volume doesn't tarnish the man's work that has become so beloved to many of us. And that is to Harrison Kinney's credit.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceedingly detailed story of the life of James Thurber. I first "brushed" against Thurber's work when a t.v. show called, "My World and Welcome to it" came to the networks 1969-70. It starred William Windom as a kind of a Thurber artist and writer. I had literally no idea who the man was but the program and cartoonish drawings were fun and so I missed the story when it disappeared after only one season. Within a couple of years we were reading some of Thurber's writings in English class. I LOVED The Night the Bed fell in as well as the Catbird Seat among many others. Thurber's style may not be for everyone but his humor is memorable.
The book is a real commitment when it comes to reading because it is one thousand and seventy seven pages long. Worth it, even for the kind of boring parts as in, all the people Thurber ever worked with and their backstories and personalities. Still, ultimately VERY entertaining. James Thurber was a complicated but "seriously" Funny. An original.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinney’s biography of Thurber is unlikely to be surpassed in authority or inclusiveness. Kinney studied Thurber for almost 5 decades. He knows every document and every text, has interviewed everyone Thurber-adjacent, and he includes almost everything he knows about Thurber, his life and times, in this biography. Which makes for a really, really long book. It took more than 200 pages to get him to the point where he was thinking seriously about writing. Thurber was an important figure, but I’m not sure his biography merits 1100 pages. I’m not sure very many people merit a biography of 1100 pages.

[Jeff Schult · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very, very, very, Very VERY detailed (and long) biography of a writer I put in a particular American pantheon that includes Mark Twain and Will Rogers.

I won't take a star away for it being long, long, long. I'm not one to say how many pages James Thurber was worth.

[Paul Bauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Massive, including an entire page devoted to the type size used by one of Thurber's early newspapers.

[Tom Britz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a biography of the famous comic author James Thurber, famous for such stories as "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "The Catbird Seat".

As any thorough biography should this one does not just give the glossy side of his triumphs but also digs into his troubled times of alcohol abuse and his emotional upheaval when he started losing his eyesight in 1937. He was not always a fun person to be around as he suffered from severe depression also.

[T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look into the life of this amazing man.

[David Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say other than this is my cup of tea. Oh-brilliantly written as well-a rare book indeed