
Reader Score
87%
87% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 18 reviews on

A TIME TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025
AN ATLANTIC TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"[This] sensational new biography . . . [expands] on what we know of Baldwin's gifts and suffering, his writing life and his love life . . . Boggs handles all of this with a commanding, sure-footed authority and comprehensiveness, subtle and solemn at once, that dazzles and awes . . . [Baldwin: A Love Story] demonstrates the kind of masterly narrative ability that can be achieved only with deep research and deep understanding of a subject . . . A stunning book." --Charles M. Blow, The New York Times
"Lively and vigorously researched . . . Boggs has dug much deeper than his predecessors . . . Baldwin: A Love Story is superlative, and it should become the new gold standard for Baldwin studies." --Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times "A lucid, propulsive, compassionate and deeply researched portrait of a writer and thinker whose wisdom the country has too often failed to heed . . . Boggs comes about as close as anyone has to wrapping his arms around Baldwin, embracing him, if you will, in his entirety." --Chris Vognar, The Boston Globe "Enlightening [and] frequently revelatory . . . Baldwin: A Love Story is a triumphant work of scholarship and issues a robust challenge to a new generation of readers to confront the man they have claimed as their prophet." --John Livesey, Jacobin "Boggs's biography makes a hugely important contribution." --Louis Menand, The New Yorker