Stanley Fish, America's enfant terrible

"One of the twentieth century's most original and influential literary theorists, Stanley Fish is also known as a fascinatingly atypical, polarizing public intellectual; a loud, cigar-smoking contrarian; and a lightning rod for both the political right and left. The truth and the limitations of this reputation are explored in Stanley Fish, America's Enfant Terrible by Gary A. Olson. At once a literary biography and a traditional life story, this engrossing volume details Fish's vibrant personal life and his remarkably versatile career. Born into a tumultuous family, Fish survived life with an emotionally absent father and a headstrong mother through street sports and troublemaking as much as through his success at a rigorous prep school. As Olson shows, Fish's escape from the working-class neighborhoods of 1940s and 1950s Providence, Rhode Island came with his departure for the university life. His meteoric rise through the academic ranks at a troubled Viet Nam-era UC-Berkeley was complemented by a 1966 romp through Europe that included drag racing through the streets of Seville in his Alfa Romeo. He went on to become an internationally prominent scholar at Johns Hopkins before mov