John James Audubon

Starred review from June 14, 2004
Born in 1785 in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), the bastard son of a French naval officer and a chambermaid, Audubon was taken to France by his father and then sent to America in 1803 to escape conscription into Napoleon's army. He began drawing birds as a child, and in America this passion grew into an obsession. His business ventures failed, and he was often short of money, but for him, birds overshadowed everything except his devotion to his wife, Lucy, who encouraged him in all his endeavors and supported the family when he went on quests for new birds to paint. Traveling into the American wilderness, Audubon, completely at home on the frontier, observed birds endlessly, and in 1826 set off for Europe to spend years promoting his multi-volume Birds of America. His life makes an engaging story, and Pulitzer Prize winner Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb
) chronicles every aspect of it, the commonplace as well as the audacious, in this thoroughly researched biography. Rhodes's prose style is subtle, enlivened by passages from Audubon's own letters and journals, and he presents an agreeable picture of a man who charmed almost everyone he met, remained devoted to his wife even though he abandoned her for years at a time and was not above lying about his birth and other details of his life. Perhaps most important, Rhodes succeeds in shedding light on how Audubon perfected his ability to capture in his depictions of birds so much life and emotion that they transcend traditional wildlife painting. Illus. throughout; 16 pages of photos not seen by PW
. Agent, Janklow & Nesbit.

June 1, 2004
Written by the author of multi-award-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb and numerous other gems, this biography of Audubon should take wing. With a 100,000-copy first printing and a seven-city author tour.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2004
Audubon's lifework, " The Birds of America," an astonishing collection of life-size and lifelike portraits of birds, stands as a glorious union of science and art. Appreciation for Audubon's heroic achievements, and for the man himself, is in fresh ascendancy. Taking a break from his usual dark subjects, which include the atomic bomb and the Holocaust, Rhodes chronicles Audubon's ineluctable sense of mission, phenomenal skills, and triumph over adversity. Tall, handsome, and dynamic when he arrived in America at age 18, Audubon was already determined to "make art of bird illustration," and he quickly found his soul mate in resourceful Lucy Bakewell. But neither he nor his wife could have imagined how demanding and disruptive Audubon's calling would become, and the story of their strained marriage, and Lucy's success in supporting herself and their two sons, is every bit as compelling as Audubon's incredible adventures and prodigious creativity. Rhodes sets Audubon's engrossing tale within the context of the War of 1812, the Louisiana Purchase, the wars against Native Americans (whom Audubon profoundly admired), and the rapid decimation of the American wilderness. Audubon, himself an extraordinarily descriptive writer, deplored the slaughtering of wildlife even as he recognized the bitter irony in his own need to kill birds in order to preserve their images. Full of passion and discovery, hardship and transcendence, Audubon's story is at once intimate and mythic, and Rhodes' fresh, comprehensive biography will capture the imagination of readers everywhere. (For a list of other material on Audubon, see the adjacent Read-alikes column.)(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)