Reviews

Dubin's Lives by Thomas Mallon, Bernard Malamud

carrieliza's review

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3.0

I liked this book, in that it is extremely well-written and is generally an easy read. But the subject matter is not something I really cared for. Boring white man pain brought about by a selfish man. Really hard to care about anyone in the cast of characters.

neiljung78's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book felt long and sad - sometimes miserable - and full of winter. Some really magnificent passages.

jamiereadthis's review

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3.0

Malamud uses up time in a way I’ve rarely seen. For one, it’s fascinating to have the biographer under glass; reading Lawrence by having Dubin wrestle with Lawrence. But the reason I had to keep reading pages twice was the way Malamud uses up time; he gets from one thing to another in the middle of a sentence, and I want to pin this one up like a moth under glass just to figure out how.
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