“Charmian Kittredge London, Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer” by Iris Jamahl Dunkle elegantly brings Charmian to life in this chronicle about the woman who is mostly known as Jack London’s wife. Dunkle’s gift as a researcher and a writer glow with perfection. Her writing abilities bring Charmian to life with intriguing adventures and travel tales. I highly recommend “Charmian Kittredge London, Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer” both as an entertaining page-turner and as a text on how to write a biography.
Tag: Charmian Kittredge London
Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer
Carl Rollyson’s review of Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer by Iris Jamahl Dunkle. Not often does a biography begin with a villain—a biographer no less. In a rousing opening, Iris Jamahl Dunkle has Irving Stone explode on the scene, romancing Jack London’s widow, Charmian Kittredge London, and dancing her into cooperating with his desire to write a biography, Sailor on Horseback (1938), which casts the woman as the femme fatale that, in effect, drives her husband Jack to suicide. Dunkle’s book might well be titled “Justice to Charmian.” . . . . . . Dunkle, who gets on with her story in a lively fashion, feeding our appetite for the fascinating account that supplants Stone’s melodrama. Although Jack London, the writer as adventurer, might overwhelm anyone else’s own story, Dunkle manages to depict her subject in the round, as Charmian saw herself and as others responded to her. Here is…