Reviews
“James Dempsey aims to illuminate this mysterious, reclusive, strange person. He succeeds brilliantly in this winning account.”
--Legal Lines
"Examines the man as more than just a relentless promoter of art and literature
--Worcester Magazine
“Scofield Thayer, in many ways, was a real-life version of Jay Gatsby”
--Worcester Telegram
“[A] sympathetic and pleasing study of this often overlooked patron and critic… the first detailed account of Thayer’s life and of his important but conflicted support of modern writers and artists at the Dial… enthralling and convincing.”
--Wall Street Journal
“An impressive new biography… It deals capably with a tremendously convoluted subject… This book required exhaustive research and yet is recounted in a lucid style.”
--Worcester Telegram and Gazetter
“[A] Well-documented, comprehensive book.”
--The Philadelphia Junto
A fascinating biography.
--WICN
[An] engaging and frank biography.
--Karen Christensen (Blog)
A persuasive case for placing Thayer at the centre of modernism.
--London Review of Books
Beautifully written. . . . Here is a man always suffering from a lack of self-knowledge and eventually from psychotic mental illness. Dempsey has done an excellent job of handling Thayer’s unreliable perspective.
--Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society