Blake Bailey

Charles Jackson's autobiographical novel The LostWeekend-- the story of five disastrous days in the life of alcoholic Don Birnam-- was published in 1944 to triumphant success. Within five years it had sold nearly half a million copies. A doting family man with two daughters, Jackson was often industrious and sober, yet he ultimately found it nearly impossible to write without the stimulus of pills or alcohol and felt his devotion to his work was worth the price.

Farther & Wilder is the moving story of an artist whose commitment to bringing forbidden subjects into the popular discourse was far ahead of his time.

Blake Bailey is the author of A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Cheever: A Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Francis Parkman Prize, and a finalist for the Pulitzer and James Tait Black Memorial Prizes. In 2010 he received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  He lives in Norfolk with his wife and daughter.