Philip Davis: Bernard Malamud. A Writer’s Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp xxii + 377. Cloth £ 18.99; Paperback (2010) £ 12.99.

Professor Davis’ biography of Malamud is an ideal example of ‘matchmaking’ (to evoke “The Magic Barrel”) between the form of this genre and its subject. Fittingly subtitled ‘A Writer’s Life’ – for reasons that go beyond the obvious – Davis structures his work telescopically, staging Malamud’s biography in ‘three lives’ (and an ‘afterlife’) which enlarge the content while reflecting back on the earlier stages in an effective cumulative process where biographical event, memory and history, continuously shed light on the new writing, while stressing how the new writing recalls these.

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