Zachary Leader

"When this second volume of The Life of Saul Bellow opens, Bellow, at forty-nine, is at the pinnacle of American letters--rich, famous, critically acclaimed. The expected trajectory is one of decline: volume 1, rise; volume 2, fall. Bellow never fell, producing some of his greatest fiction (Mr. Sammler's Planet, Humboldt's Gift, all his best stories) and winning two more National Book Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize. At eighty, he wrote...