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11 quotes by Blake Bailey

Blake Bailey (born July 1, 1963 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) is an American writer. Bailey is widely known for his literary biographies of John Cheever, Richard Yates, and Charles Jackson. He is the editor of the Library of America omnibus editions of Cheever's stories and novels.
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I write literary biographies, so above all, I have to love the subject's books. But choosing a subject is tough.

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If possible, be funny.

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With literary biographies, you're either shelved with other biographies or next to your subject's fiction.

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I keep three framed photographs on my desk: the latest school picture of my daughter; a photo of my wife getting her diploma from the University of... →

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I myself am consummately middle class. We grew up in upper-middle-class suburbs in Oklahoma City, and that's very much the same ethos as what... →

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I'm a huge fan of 'The Lost Weekend.' I have this dog-eared copy of the 1963 Time Reading Program edition, which was a series of... →

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I'm not an academic; I'm just a bookish Joe who gets passionate about certain writers and suddenly wants to read everything they've ever... →

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My father was a golden boy from a very small town. He won a very prestigious law scholarship to NYU Law School, and there in Greenwich Village, he... →

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The fact is, most of us don't have that many people who are willing to listen to all our sad stories, and when someone comes along who wants... →

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The whole psychoanalytical establishment in America at midcentury was geared to make people with homosexual proclivities feel like monsters, moral... →

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To be a good biographer, you have to be an empiricist. You know, you have to gather the evidence, you have to keep an open mind, and you have to be... →

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