While David Mamet's plays are thought-provoking and unique, and Mamet himself is probably a fascinating character, you wouldn't know it from reading this book.
Ira Nadel has essentially written a thesislike overview of Mamet's work, not a biography. It jumps from event to event in staccato fashion, rarely delving into Mamet's thought process or emotional state. Is this meant to evoke Mamet's style of playwriting, described ad nauseam as "tough-guy" or "macho"? Or does Nadel simply not know much beyond surface details? We're left to draw our own conclusions.
Characters come in and out of Mamet's life, but relationships are never fleshed out. We know that Mamet and actor William H. Macy are friends, for example, because Nadel says so, but we don't hear about times they may have spent together offstage. We're told Mamet had a first wife, actor Lindsay Crouse, but not about how they courted or why they hit it off. The birth of their daughter is treated poorly — a one-paragraph passing mention.
Such disregard for detail extends to the narrative's chronology. On one page, Mamet and Crouse are mentioned as a seemingly happy couple. On the next, we learn that Mamet married Rebecca Pidgeon and shared a house with her in Boston. Nadel doesn't get around to describing what happened between Mamet and Crouse until sometime later.
This jumping back and forth applies to Nadel's examination of Mamet's plays too. The American Buffalo character Teach is mentioned or quoted long before the play's genesis is described, something alienating to those unfamiliar with Mamet's full body of work.
Nadel also tends to gloss over lesser Mamet plays in favor of his successes. Four pages are spent recounting the plot of Glengarry Glen Ross, yet only three paragraphs are allotted to the lesser-known The Water Engine. Should the biography of an artist ignore smaller works or failures in favor of triumphs?
Most off-putting is that Nadel seems madly in love with the idea of Mamet as the ultimate outsider, the gun-collecting soldier of fortune, frequently describing what plaid lumberjack shirt he wore or his crewcut. To be honest, who cares? How many references to Mamet smoking can we stand?