BOOK REVIEW: 'Life Itself: A Memoir' by Roger Ebert

Since losing his ability to speak after cancer-related surgeries in 2007, Roger Ebert’s writing has become his voice. His online presence has swelled to include more than just film reviews. His blog, where he writes about everything from politics to celebrity encounters to his daily life, receives millions of hits. He doesn’t talk, but he communicates like never before.

Life Itself is in many ways the result of this new paradigm. It’s not a linear autobiographical recollection, but rather a series of interconnected vignettes that in some way help define Ebert’s life, work and outlook. Reading it, I’m reminded of why he’s America’s greatest film critic. It’s not because of his expertise or insight, though that’s always been a part of it. It’s because he writes with his soul. A Roger Ebert film review is always genuine, witty and focused on what the film does, not what it is. Every page of Life Itself is infused with the same kind of wit, the same energy, the same wisdom and candor that have made Roger Ebert one of the great cultural commentators of his time.

Ebert journeys through his childhood in Illinois, to his school days and early friends and finally to his work at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he received the film critic job without ever asking or hoping for it. Readers expecting a “this is how I got famous” path won’t find it. Ebert isn’t interested in why everyone reads what he writes. What he tries to do instead is chart his path of deep immersion in the movies through the people who helped immerse him. Chapters are devoted to towering figures of cinema that he’s had the privilege of rubbing shoulders with: John Wayne, Woody Allen, Werner Herzog, Martin Scorsese. He writes about what these people taught him, what they mean to him, how they helped him understand the movies.

He writes with love about the great film critic Pauline Kael and how her work influenced his own. He writes about his father. He writes about his partner and brother in arms, the great Gene Siskel. He writes about his wife, Chaz, about love and loss and the cancer that warped his face and took his voice.

But it never feels like navel gazing.

Life Itself is an adventure of a book by a truly great writer who proves once and for all that his chops go far beyond the realm of thumbs up and thumbs down. Ebert may not have ever set out to tell his story this way, but his voice is louder than ever.

Life Itself is available September 13 in bookstores everywhere.


Advance Reading Copy courtesy of Grand Central Publishing