A major re-assessment of the genius of Stephen Crane - best known for The Red Badge of Courage.
'Exhilarating.' Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year
'Sharp-eyed and revealing.' The New Yorker
'Brilliant . . . Remarkable.' New York Journal of Books
Best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane produced an avalanche of sublime literature before he succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of twenty-eight. Yet his short life was an eventful one: from crushing poverty as a newcomer to Manhattan and his near-drowning in a shipwreck, to his stint as a war correspondent in Cuba and international fame at twenty-five, to his final years in England and friendships with Joseph Conrad and Henry James. In Burning Boy, celebrated novelist Paul Auster delves deeply into the story of Crane's tumultuous and dramatic life.