Quotes
“In Mark Lamster’s nuanced telling, Johnson…becomes a symbol of America itself. This is biography as history, and it is a magnificent piece of work.” David L. Ulin, author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles
“A biography with attitude, a bullet train through the shifting landscapes of twentieth-century America, and a sheer pleasure to read.” Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do
“A biography that is as much literary as critical achievement. Required reading for anyone hoping to make sense of the American century, for Johnson was its house architect.” Christopher Hawthorne, chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles and former architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times
“Johnson was a fascinating and disturbing figure; Lamster’s biography, impressively and honestly, displays him with his full complexity.” Ruth Franklin,author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
“Smoothly written and fair-minded…[A] searching and thorough overview of Johnson’s engrossing life.” Wall Street Journal
“[A] brisk, clear-eyed new biography.” New Yorker
“The perfect addition to the aesthete’s bookshelf…Essential” Toronto Globe and Mail
“A vivid, thoughtful, illuminating, disturbing, and definitive chronicle of one of twentieth-century architecture’s most celebrated and powerful figures.” Kurt Andersen, author and host of Studio 360
“Lamster’s mesmerizing, authoritative, and often-astonishing study grapples with Johnson’s legacy in all its ambiguity…[A] masterful achievement.” Booklist (starred review)
“A fresh look at [Johnson’s] less-than-savory aspects, Lamster portrays a diffident genius for whom being boring was the greatest crime.” Kirkus (starred review)