Pollock's life, one of anger and depression, alcoholism and suicide attempts, was also full of vitality and imagination; despite bruised feelings, spurned generosity, and disruption to their lives, his friends acknowledged his need both to provoke and to be forgiven. This study, the result of seven years"research and 2000 interviews, is a strange combination of biographical research, art historical analysis, and pop psychology, with a touch of"soon to be a major motion picture"thrown in for good measure. Although events and conversations are substantially annotated, this enormous body of facts fails to go beneath the first layer in the life of this complex artist; the novellike prose seems to duplicate Pollock's familiar style of"show and conceal."Still, this work--a cultural history as well as a biography--makes for interesting reading. - Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum Lib., New York Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. "
