Paul newman biography eric lax amherst ma

COOL HAND NEWMAN

Eric Lax's Newman: A Biography (Turner Publishing, $29.95, 192 pages), a sometimes insightful look at Paul Newman, delves into some inner recesses of a private man, not usually given to personal journalistic reveries. Expectations of startling disclosures will not be met as Newman the man, like many of his famous screen characters, is a laconic rather than loquacious communicator.

Unfortunately, Lax, who wrote an earlier biography of Woody Allen, is prone to dense, lyrical prose that leaps about without benefit of segue.
In some respects, the book is more of a tribute than a biography, although it traces the ascent of a creative artist into actor/director and finally an institution, who was secure enough in his future at the relatively youthful age of 43 to coast innocuously on his celebrity thereafter.

It is at this juncture that Newman undertook sometimes risky forays into liberal politics and car racing and began the shi