All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Permissions for use of previously published and unpublished materials can be found on .
Names: Leader, Zachary, author.
Title: The life of Saul Bellow : love and strife, 19652005 / By Zachary Leader.
Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017053381 (print) | LCCN 2017056393 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101875179 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101875162 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Bellow, Saul. | Novelists, American20th centuryBiography.
Classification: LCC PS 3503.E4488 (ebook) | LCC PS3503.E4488 Z7355 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.52 [B]dc23
List of Illustrations
SB and Susan, Marthas Vineyard, mid-1960s
Maggie Staats, New York, late 1960s
SB and students, Montreal, 1968
SB and Alexandra, London, mid-1970s
SB at Nobel Prize press conference, University of Chicago, 1976
SB at the second Jefferson Lecture, Chicago, 1977
Maury and Sam Bellows
Protesters at Cornell, 1969
SB and Janis on their wedding day, Vermont, August 25, 1989
Janis, SB, and Allan Bloom, Chicago, 1990
Grand Case, St. Martin, undated
Janis, Marje Horvitz, SB, and Beena Kamlani, Vermont, 2000
SB and Will Lautzenheiser, 2003
SB outside the Belasco Theatre, New York, 1964
Sam Levene as Bummidge, Broadway, 1964
Pat Covici and SB, early 1960s
Playbill for Under the Weather, 1966
Maggie Staats, SB, and Sam Goldberg at the French Consulate in New York, 1968
Arlette Landes and daughter Bonnie, Chicago, 1967
Bette Howland, 1985
Frances Gendlin, mid-1970s
SB and sons Adam and Daniel on Marthas Vineyard, 1965
SB and Adam in England, 1969
SB and Daniel on Nantucket, 1969
Greg Bellow, 1969
Saul Steinberg drawing of Murchison Falls, Uganda
SB and David Peltz
Edward Shils lecturing
David Grene
Floyd Salas in the 1960s
David Shapiro and student protesters at Columbia University, 1968
SB in Japan, April 1972
Honorary degree recipients, Harvard University, 1972
SB and Herman Wouk in Aspen, 1970s
James Salter in Aspen, 1970s
Walter Pozen, 1967
SB in Aspen, 1974
SB, Alexandra, and her mother, Florica Bagdasar, 1970s
The Bellow family in Stockholm, December 1976
SB receiving the Nobel Prize, Stockholm, December 1976
The Saint Lucia ceremony, Stockholm, December 1976
SB and his publishers, Stockholm, December 13, 1976
Greg, Daniel, and Adam Bellow, Stockholm, December 1976
Alexandra, SB, Leon Wieseltier, and Daniel, Vermont, 1977
SBs house in Vermont, 2008, built in the late 1970s
The Cloisters, 5805 Dorchester Avenue, Hyde Park
The Cloisters, ground floor corridor, Hyde Park
5490 South Shore Drive, The Vatican, Hyde Park
5825 Dorchester Avenue, Hyde Park
Rudolf Steiner
Owen Barfield, c. 1975
Peter Demay
William Hunt, early 1970s
SB and Joseph Epstein, 1970s
John Cheever, John Updike, and their wives at the National Book Award ceremony, 1964
SB and Edward H. Levi at the Jefferson Lecture, Chicago, 1977
SB and President Jimmy Carter, Washington, D.C., March 1979
Children at play, Robert Taylor Homes
Clair Patterson, Pasadena, California, 1993
Winston Moore, Warden of Cook County Jail, playing horseshoes, 1971
Philip Grew as a University of Chicago undergraduate, 1977
5344 South Woodlawn Avenue, Hyde Park
Jonathan Kleinbard, 1983
Philip Grew, Umbria, 2016
T. J. McCarthy, early 1980s
Marion Siegel, Barney Singer, SB, Alexandra, and Howie Siegel in Victoria, British Columbia
Lesha Greengus, Jane Bellow Kauffman, and SB in Montreal
Eugene Kennedy and SB, early 1980s, Chicago
SB and Allan Bloom, Vermont
Harriet Wasserman
Andrew Wylie
Barley Alison
Joel Bellows
Adam Bellow and Rachel Newton at the time of their marriage, 1986
Daniel and Susan Bellow
Susan Bellow, Daniel Bellow and Heather Hershman (groom and bride), and SB, January 1996
Billy Rose, 1948
Nathan Tarcov
Allan Bloom, 1987
Leo Strauss
Faculty of the Committee on Social Thought, 1987
SB and Ada Aharoni, Haifa, 1987
SB, Shimon Peres, and a University of Haifa official, April 1987
SB and Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem, 1987
SB and President Ronald Reagan, Washington, D.C., 1988
Mark Harris, 1984
Ruth Miller, 1987
James Atlas, 2016
Brent Staples, 2005
SB, Rosie, and Martin Amis, Vermont
Cynthia Ozick
James Wood and SB, c. 2000
Ruth Wisse and SB, 2001, Brookline
SB and Chris Walsh in front of Crowninshield Road house, Brookline, mid-1990s
SB and Keith Botsford, Boston University, early 2000s
Crowninshield Road house, Brookline, 2017
John Silber
Guests assembled outside the Vermont house the day after SBs surprise seventy-fifth birthday party
SB, Richard Stern, and Alane Rollings
SB and Philip Roth on the Connecticut River, Brattleboro, Vermont, 1998
David Peltz, 2008, Chicago
Stephanie Nelson and Janis Freedman Bellow awarded Ph.D.s, with David Grene and SB, University of Chicago, 1993
Roger Kaplan and daughter Chloe, Paris, early 1990s
Franois Furet
SB and Janis, with Sonia and Harvey Freedman in the background, Rosie barely visible
Gregory Bellow, 2005
Juliet Bellow, late 1990s
Janis and SB, Brookline, 1996
SBs grave
Fame and Politics in the 1960s
T HE LAUNCH PARTY for Herzog was held on September 22, 1964, two days after Julian Moynihan pronounced the novel a masterpiece on the front page of The New York Times Book Review and Philip Rahv called Bellow the finest stylist at present writing fiction in America in a review in the