I often wished I could find a brief, clear introduction to Cather’s life and work — a book that would intrigue and illuminate, without bogging down in scholarly disagreements. Benjamin Taylor...offers just that with Chasing Bright Medusas, his crisp sketch of Cather’s life — a portrait, as she described her vision for one of her own novels, 'like a thin miniature painted on ivory'.

Slender, discerning.

This succinct biography is a terrific introduction to the life and work of the Pulitzer Prize winner. But don’t come looking for radical new insights. Taylor’s thorough, thoughtful study is more of a sincerely informed primer or devoted guide than a vigorous cultural analysis.

[Taylor] has written a passionate love letter to her in the form of a brief but illuminating biography. Chasing Bright Medusas clocks in at just over 150 pages but it offers a fine introduction to one of the leading novelists of the American frontier.

There have been a half dozen biographies of Willa Cather since her death in 1947, most notably substantial studies of the writer’s life and work by James Woodress and Hermione Lee. Benjamin Taylor’s trim account of Cather’s life belongs on the same shelf with those heftier narratives.

Taylor gives Cather the full treatment, and he does so splendidly. Taylor chooses a mostly chronological framework to tell Cather’s life story. His overarching technique is to marry select letters with Cather excerpts to pin down and amplify certain life moments.

Taylor, an award-winning memoirist, novelist and biographer, freely admits his great affection and admiration for Cather and her writing. In this relatively short but well-researched biography, he conveys Cather’s complexity, her strengths and her frailties.

A remarkably revealing account of the life and creative output of Willa Cather.

Taylor examines in this solid critical biography the ideas and passions that animated the life and work of novelist Willa Cather.