Atlas's memoir is frank, illuminating, and at times profoundly melancholy. In some respects he writes about a soon-to-be-lost art of literary biography. Describing his own ordeals and triumphs--writing lives of Delmore Schwartz and Saul Bellow--he's forthright about the psychological and emotional toll of taking on the life of someone else--in Bellow's case, while the subject of the biography was still very much alive. Writers are a prickly, over-sensitive and demanding species, James Atlas has proven the virtue of having the patience of a saint, the diligence of a computer nerd and the very real passion for literature that lies behind his achievements. This book is well worth reading by anyone interested in how we tell the lives of others.