True Believer

Thunderous. -The New York Review of Books Illuminating . . . A well-researched, engrossing and compulsively readable book. -Los Angeles Times Tantalizing . . . Riesman puts in the hard yards to separate fact from myth. -Dorian Lynskey, The Spectator Revelatory. -USA Today An illuminating and reliable account of Lee's improbable odyssey. -Jacob Heilbrunn, Washington Monthly Striking . . . True Believer paints a portrait of a man who was just as flawed as his heroes, and he emerges all the more human for it. . . . [Riesman is] a must-read chronicler of the comic book industry. -The Hollywood Reporter For those who know Stan Lee from his sunny, funny cameos in Marvel films, get ready for an unputdownable deep dive. The man lived a life-warts and all-and Riesman captures the shadow and sunshine in equal measure. -Patton Oswalt True Believer is in every imaginable way the biography that Stan Lee deserves-ambitious, audacious, daring, and unflinchingly clear-eyed about the man's significance, his shortcomings, his transgressions, his accomplishments, and his astonishing legacy. -Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road Stan Lee was a mythmaker, both creatively and autobiographically. To reach the truth of his troubled and troubling life story, Riesman has had to peel away layers of quarrel, exaggeration, credit-grabbing, dispute, and faulty memory. The result is an enthralling, vibrantly written portrait of one of American popular culture's great innovators. -Mark Harris, author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back The story of Stan Lee is a wild ride, sometimes breathtaking, often shocking-but it is also a wholly American one, rooted in the transformation of hardscrabble reality into glorious dreams, of legends into truth, of absence into action, of immigration into assimilation. -Sarah Weinman, author of The Real Lolita Stan Lee was, all at once, a genius, a schlepper, a hack, a huckster, a marvel. Riesman painstakingly dug into how much credit each of those overlapping personae deserves, and then he spun all those threads into a book that reads with the supple speed of Mr. Fantastic himself. -Chris Bonanos, author of Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous A life rich with unexpected turns and a biography filled with personality. In looking at a man who created heroic stories for a living, Riesman bravely examines the trace lines underneath the legends of his life. The result is a startling, fresh portrait of a truly American career. -Nathan Heller, author of The Private Order Jam-packed with carefully compiled evidence of just how much delectable bullshit, staggering failure, and vicious backbiting goes into the making of a great American genius. I genuinely could not put it down. -Penny Lane, director of Hail Satan? Take it from someone who has always found comic books alluring but knew next to nothing about the medium's history before reading True Believer: this book will pull you in no matter what level of knowledge or built-in curiosity you bring to it. -Leon Neyfakh, co-creator of Slow Burn and Fiasco