2025

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Oct 24 — "Capacious . . . Richardson’s carefully cross-hatched study of his subject depicts him in the wild, in all habitats and seasons," writes Stephen Smith in a generous review for the Financial Times.

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Oct 23 — A review in The Spectator by Guy Stagg: “Impressive . . . A rigorous and balanced account of this restless soul. . . . Richardson shows how Matthiessen’s devotion to writing never wavered, despite depression, lawsuits and the painful gestation of several novels. In the process, he reveals the many sides (to quote Matthiessen’s own editor) of ‘an immensely complicated, neurotic, charming, iron-willed, uncertain, demanding author.’” 

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Oct 15 — A conversation about with Benjamin Moser at the Brooklyn Public Library.  

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Oct 14 — Publication day for True Nature. A launch event at the New York Public Library with Sam Anderson; the recording is up on YouTube.  

 

Two podcasts are out: Creative Journeys and the Virtual Memories Show.

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A discussion with Terry McDonell on LitHub: "Who Was Peter Matthiessen, Really?"

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John Kaag has a beautiful review in The Atlantic. "Elegant and rigorous. . . . Restlessness is deeply rooted in American mythology. . . . Few have embodied this supposedly American quality with more complexity than the writer Peter Matthiessen. And few have captured it with more clarity than Lance Richardson." 

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Oct 13 — Several new reviews the day before publication. 

 

A starred review in Publishers Weekly: "Richardson writes movingly of the melding of ecology and divinity in Matthiessen’s literary work, and of his years of activism. The result is a touching, unsparing, and fully rendered portrait of a complex figure of 20th-century literature."

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A sprawling, generous assessment by Maggie Doherty in The New Yorker: “The first biography of the writer, and an engaging one at that . . . grounded in remarkably candid interviews with Matthiessen’s family members and lovers.”

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And Dwight Garner shares his opinion (“Dispassionate and thorough”) in the NYTimes.

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Oct 12 — "Beautifully written, insightful, and engaging, True Nature is a tour de force depiction of a charismatic, restless, self-absorbed, immensely talented literary lion," Glenn Altschuler writes in a review for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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And at Open Letters Review, a review by Steve Donoghue: "This is a brilliant biography, bristling with ground-clearing primary-source research, filled with every findable fact about this writer, and, in an added twist as rare as it’s welcome, written with serious narrative flair."

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Sept 27 — Pico Iyer reviews True Nature for Air Mail. "Lance Richardson . . . tracks his elusive prey along every uneven path with heroic thoroughness in his huge biography, assisted in great part by the journals, unpublished manuscripts, and letters the prodigious author generated in such profusion. . . . A fair-minded, grippingly paced, and tremendously readable narrative."

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​And in Garden & Gun, a joint review by Jonathan Miles of True Nature and Todd Goddard's Devouring Time, on Matthiessen's friend Jim Harrison: "Both are top-notch: sensitive, probing, admiring but never fawning, and exhaustively researched. The men's flaws go unscrubbed and their contradictions unsmoothed. Both books send you back to their works with freshened eyes and a hungry heart." 

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Sept 25 — "Are We Entering a New Golden Age of Biography?" For Literary Hub, Megan Marshall discusses Matthiessen and True Nature alongside new biographies of Gertrude Stein and James Baldwin.

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Sept 23 — A new lengthy review has just gone up at Alta. "Richardson’s fine-toothed research establishes Peter’s importance as a writer and a singular inhabitant of his time," writes Terry McDonell. "That is the strength of a great biography—which True Nature is."

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Sept 2 — Reviewing for The American Scholar, Michael O'Donnell describes True Nature as "enthralling, expertly told, and based on extraordinary research." 

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Aug 30 — True Nature is included in the Washington Post fall books preview of "anticipated releases." 

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July 3​ — ​In the first pre-publication review, Kirkus calls True Nature "a comprehensive, compelling life of a man of many parts."​