A pleasure to read and a model biography: appreciative yet critical, unfailingly intelligent and elegantly written . . . a shrewd, in-depth reckoning of the elusive man behind the polished facade. . . . [Harris s] marvelous book makes palpable in artful detail the extraordinary scope and brilliance of [Nichols s] achievements. Wendy Smith, The Washington Post
Wonderful . . . [Harris] is in top form here. His command of the theater world and the film industry and his smart and engaging writing (he calls the profligate Nichols a rich man who enjoyed living like an even richer man ) make the book a pleasure to read. Christian Science Monitor
Hugely entertaining . . . Harris is a talented storyteller. Louis
Menand,
The New YorkerImmersive . . . a book to savor, full of juicy industry details, nonstop name-dropping and insights from scores of Nichols famous friends. It truly feels like stepping into Nichols world. NPR s 2021 Books We Love
Gleaming . . . fortified with a wealth of interviews that make the acknowledgments a red carpet roll call (Candice Bergen, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep ),
Mike Nichols: A Life is a midcentury fairy tale of right place-right time-right crowd . . . the rare large-scale biography without boring bits. James Wolcott,
The New York Times Book Review Enthralling, extensively researched . . . Especially moving is Harris s chronicling of the relationships and creative partnerships that helped Nichols develop his preternatural skills, most significantly with his first comedy partner Elaine May . . . Harris paints a rich, nuanced portrait of a brilliant man and a legendary career. TIME s The 100 Must-Read Book of 2021
Terrific.
San Francisco ChronicleAnyone with an abiding love for film or theater will be fascinated by
Mike Nichols, but even those with only a passing familiarity with his work are likely to find themselves taken in by this engrossing biography. Harris' book is a masterwork, endlessly engaging, and one of the best biographies of an American artist to be published in recent years. NPR.org
A superb new biography.
Chicago TribuneMeticulous, deeply engrossing. Variety
May be the best biography of an artist in a very long time. The Wrap
Harris, a proven scholar of Hollywood, writes brilliantly and gathers momentum with deeply researched, fascinating forensic passages about the challenges and conflicts of Nichols great projects.
USA TodayFascinating, exhaustively researched, and utterly absorbing . . . a roller-coaster life that, no matter how challenging it might have been for Mike Nichols. makes a thrilling tale for the reader. Vogue.com
A monumental tribute to a singular talent . . . a cinderblock of a book whose weight is never felt in the reading. . . Getting [Elaine] May on the record stands as one of the book s major accomplishments, one that calls out for a full-fledged follow-up and affirms this most crucial of connections. AV Club
Magnificent.
The NationI read this because I was such a fan of Mark Harris s first two books and wound up being fascinated by
Mike Nichols. I found the book incredibly relaxing, in the same way going to the movies can be relaxing. I felt entertained and taken care of. It was an enormous treat. Ann Patchett, via Instagram
Harris has produced a biography that transcends the prodigiously reported facts and wild-ride circumstances of Nichols lives. The book pulses with a narrative energy equal to its subject. When was the last time you read a biography that also was a page-turner? Theater News Online
Dazzling . . . A superb and definitive biography that Nichols and his fans deserve. Harris (
Pictures at a Revolution) is part film historian, theater buff and investigative reporter, which makes this rich, compassionate and candid biography soar with fresh, first-hand anecdotes from Nichols's co-workers and Harris's astute observations about the director's work. . . . the ideal gift for anyone interested in the creative arts. Shelf Awareness
Sprawling yet intimate . . . Candid, colorful and chock-full of detail,
Mike Nichols: A Life is the biography that Nichols well deserves.
BookPage (starred)
A Mike Nichols credit always made the heart race with anticipation. So does
Mike Nichols: A Life, an epic biography of an epic creative life . . . engrossing. Associated Press
Mark Harris s biography is a must for every film and theatre buff. Every moment in Nichols life and career comes vividly alive. . . .
Mike Nichols: A Life is an invaluable contribution to the history of American theatre and film since World War II as well as a colorful portrait of one of its most celebrated and at times denigrated practitioners. John M. Clum,
New York Journal of Books[A] crisp new biography . . . [Harris has] a gift for scene-setting. He s at his best in
Mike Nichols: A Life when he takes you inside a production. His chapters on the making of three films in particular The Graduate, Silkwood and Angels in America are miraculous: shrewd, tight, intimate and funny. You sense he could turn each one into a book . . . [Nichols] was a man in perpetual motion, and Harris chases him with patience, clarity and care. Dwight Garner,
The New York TimesJudicious and superbly well-written . . . [Nichols s] peculiar gift was for making [actors] feel safe being precarious. The essence of life is that it unfolds chronologically and according to no script. Actors must capture this essence, then somehow transfer it into highly artificial situations. If Nichols played taskmaster, it was only to remind them that what is happening here has never happened before; you have no idea what others will say or do next, you must stay spontaneous and reactive all while subordinating yourself to a larger story. That was, finally, the great, impossible neither/nor of his genius, as it is, too, of Mark Harris wonderful book. Stephen Metcalf,
Los Angeles Times
Can t-put-it-down biography . . . Like his subject, its humor is sidesplitting, its behavioral insights keen and its wit double-edged. . . . Harris strength as a writer is not merely giving the reader a window onto how his subject put together a sketch, a play, a movie, a career, and a life, but putting her in the rooms where it happened. . . . like all great biographies, Harris book is a double-portrait of an artist and his era. Carrie Rickey,
ForwardSuch a wide-ranging professional life is the stuff of a major biography, and Mark Harris, author of
Pictures at a Revolution and
Five Came Back, two of the best books about film to come out in recent years, has delivered the goods.
Mike Nichols: A Life is as fine a portrait of anyone in the performing arts as I have ever read . . . Mark Harris s wonderful book, which comes seven years after [Nichols ] passing, will serve as his monument. Commentary
Fascinating for its exploration of a great artist s inner workings, as well as for its chronicling of an industry s evolution.
O Magazine, Most Anticipated Books of 2021
The book is as smart and well-paced as if Mike had directed it. It s
Virginia Woolf brutal and
Birdcage funny. I devoured the details of Mike s fascinating life, but I also marveled at Mark Harris s ability to lead us through it. The shaky wooden rollercoaster of collaboration, the serpent-tongued antihero s path to love, an artist s guide to not being trash, ten pounds of movie stars in a five pound bag this book has it all! Tina Fey
Mike was many things to many people, a multi-talented man of many parts, who lived several lifetimes during his long, complicated roller-coaster of a life. But above all else, Mike was a great director, and Mark Harris has produced a clear-eyed, honest, enormously entertaining, deeply moving and thought-provoking account of what a director s life is like and of what being a director means. His particular gifts, demonstrated in each book he writes, of combining objectivity with empathy and seriousness with delight are precisely what make him Mike Nichols s ideal biographer. I can t think of any praise higher than to say that this book is worthy of its subject. Steven Spielberg
There are so many lessons in Mike's nine-act tragedy and triumph of a life: the joy of collaboration, the thrill of finding collaborators and soulmates; the ups and downs of the creative process. Mark Harris introduces us to every version of Mike Nichols, and shows us how each one prepared the way for the next. It's an incredible achievement. Required reading. Lin-Manuel Miranda
The rise and rise of Igor, the bald refugee kid from Berlin, is a Technicolor dream a dazzling only-in-America story like something out of Horatio Alger. In this exciting biography, Mark Harris never loses sight of the sharper edges of Mike Nichols s success or the price he paid for it. But his deep love of his subjects Nichols and the American performing arts makes this an essential work for understanding our culture in the last century through one of its most outstanding, and most unlikely, protagonists. Benjamin Moser, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
SontagMike Nichols, born Igor Michael Peschkowsky, was something between a man and a self-made myth. Mark Harris s magnificent, mesmerizing biography honors both sides of the Nichols persona, conjuring his charismatic brilliance while probing the human complexity behind the impish grin. Virtuosic in style, deep in insight, at times convulsively funny, at times piercingly sad, this tour-de-force of reporting, storytelling, and analysis stands as a clear-eyed homage to an artist who willed his own golden age. Alex Ross, music critic of
The New Yorker and author of
WagnerismHarris s (
Five Came Back) engrossing, pull-no-punches biography . . . sweeps readers up into the whirlwind of Nichols s life. Likely to become the definitive book about Nichols, Harris s exhaustive take should have widespread appeal, especially given the dearth of currently available literature about this important and influential entertainment icon.
Library JournalHarris follows two outstanding works of film history (
Pictures at a Revolution, 2008, and
Five Came Back, 2014) with this robust biography of legendary director Mike Nichols. Harris' skill as a storyteller is on full view . . . with a novelist's feel for narrative . . . Like the best biographies, Harris brings his subject's life and work together in a perfectly unified whole.
Booklist (starred review)
Harris (
Five Came Back) delivers an entertaining portrait of actor, director, and producer Mike Nichols in this bracingly candid biography. . . . a joyously readable and balanced account of a complex man.
Publisher's Weekly
