When Allen Tate died in 1979, Simon and Schuster speedily commissioned a biography, to be written, they announced, by Ned O'Gorman, a poet of some reputation and a friend of two of Tate's three wives. O'Gorman, it would seem, got going in the usual way, writing to all the obvious Tate contacts and attempting to interview key intimates. He also trawled through at least some of the vast cache of Tate material (57 boxes, 30 cubic feet) that sits in Princeton's Firestone Library - sold to the university by Tate in 1967. By the mid-1980s, O'Gorman felt ready to put pen to paper: 'So one day the biographer has enough to begin. And he begins to write and discovers, as I have discovered, that lies, deceptions, half-truths, fake truths, family loyalties, friendships, literary feuds get in the way and render even a birth date suspect.'

LRB 24 May 2001 | PDF Download