A01=Blake Bailey
Author_Blake Bailey
autobiography
Blake Bailey
cancel culture
canceled
canceled lives
Category=DNBL
Category=DNC
charles jackson
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
getting canceled
john cheever
memoir
New York Times
new york times bestseller
new york times bestseller list
New York Times bestsellers
new York times bestselling
New York Times book review
philip roth
richard yates
the splendid things we planned
Product details
- ISBN 9781510783317
- Weight: 363g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 03 Jul 2025
- Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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A canceled bestselling author’s highly personal account of his public scandal—a scandal that was reported on the front page of the New York Times and throughout the world.
Blake Bailey grew up in the shadow of his father, Burck, an eminent litigator—president of the Oklahoma Bar Association and widely considered a sort of real-life Atticus Finch: “His conduct, honesty, integrity, and courtesy best exemplify and represent the highest standards of the legal profession,” his colleagues commended him in a 1989 award citation.
As for Blake, he was a late bloomer who finally came into his own as a writer. His fourth literary biography, Philip Roth, was published on April 6, 2021, and hailed as “a narrative masterwork” by Cynthia Ozick on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. The 900-page book debuted at #12 on the Times Nonfiction Bestseller list.
But success came at a terrible price: because of revelations in Bailey’s biography, many were calling for Roth and his work to be “canceled,” while others thought Bailey had been overly sympathetic and even “complicitous” with his subject’s worst failings. Soon rumors exploded on the internet about Bailey’s own private life, and within days he himself was roundly canceled.
Canceled Lives is the story of a father and son who had much in common—for better and for worse—and who supported each other in the midst of terrible family strife, including the drug addiction and suicide of Blake’s older brother, Scott. Having achieved a success in life that Blake, at least, never expected, both father and son were ravaged by the ordeal of Blake’s spectacular public humiliation.
Blake Bailey grew up in the shadow of his father, Burck, an eminent litigator—president of the Oklahoma Bar Association and widely considered a sort of real-life Atticus Finch: “His conduct, honesty, integrity, and courtesy best exemplify and represent the highest standards of the legal profession,” his colleagues commended him in a 1989 award citation.
As for Blake, he was a late bloomer who finally came into his own as a writer. His fourth literary biography, Philip Roth, was published on April 6, 2021, and hailed as “a narrative masterwork” by Cynthia Ozick on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. The 900-page book debuted at #12 on the Times Nonfiction Bestseller list.
But success came at a terrible price: because of revelations in Bailey’s biography, many were calling for Roth and his work to be “canceled,” while others thought Bailey had been overly sympathetic and even “complicitous” with his subject’s worst failings. Soon rumors exploded on the internet about Bailey’s own private life, and within days he himself was roundly canceled.
Canceled Lives is the story of a father and son who had much in common—for better and for worse—and who supported each other in the midst of terrible family strife, including the drug addiction and suicide of Blake’s older brother, Scott. Having achieved a success in life that Blake, at least, never expected, both father and son were ravaged by the ordeal of Blake’s spectacular public humiliation.
Blake Bailey is the author of biographies of Philip Roth, John Cheever, Richard Yates, and Charles Jackson. He won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer and James Tait Black Prizes. A previous memoir, The Splendid Things We Planned, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. He is working on a biography of James Salter.
