Pre-order ‘Robin’ — The Definitive Robin Williams Biography by Dave Itzkoff

The death of Robin Williams is something that still hurts to think about, nearly four years later. In a couple weeks however, New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff will be dropping a biography about Robin Williams (titled simply Robin) that by all reports will be a must-read.

From the description:

From his rapid-fire stand-up comedy riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy and his Academy Award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams was a singularly innovative and beloved entertainer. He often came across as a man possessed, holding forth on culture and politics while mixing in personal revelations — all with mercurial, tongue-twisting intensity as he inhabited and shed one character after another with lightning speed.

But as Dave Itzkoff shows in this revelatory biography, Williams’s comic brilliance masked a deep well of conflicting emotions and self-doubt, which he drew upon in his comedy and in celebrated films like Dead Poets Society; Good Morning, Vietnam; The Fisher King; Aladdin; and Mrs. Doubtfire, where he showcased his limitless gift for improvisation to bring to life a wide range of characters. And in Good Will Hunting he gave an intense and controlled performance that revealed the true range of his talent.

Itzkoff also shows how Williams struggled mightily with addiction and depression — topics he discussed openly while performing and during interviews — and with a debilitating condition at the end of his life that affected him in ways his fans never knew. Drawing on more than a hundred original interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as extensive archival research, Robin is a fresh and original look at a man whose work touched so many lives.

As harrowing as I expect it'll be to read this book to its bitter end, it seems like it will be the closest any of us will ever come to understanding the tragic mad genius of Williams. I'm at once eagerly awaiting and dreading it.

Robin will release on May 15th, 2018 and can be pre-ordered in these formats:

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