"Read Brad Gooch's fine biography of Frank, City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara--it's all there and it's all true." - John Gruen, Callas Kissed Me.Lenny Too!: A Critics Memoir "Brad Good has brought Frank O'Hara's brilliance and prescience to the attention of a new generation and beyond, alerting some and reminding others of this mercurial poet, the great New York laureate of the last of this century. His life was a terrific display of guts and wit and style and passion. Gooch conveys all of this with lightness and thoroughness." - Luc Sante "The facts of O'Hara's life receive full justice in Gooch's biography. Good has gone everywhere, interviewed everyone. He captures the spirit of bright cheer that blew through New York in the fifties.

" - The New Yorker "A dashing, dishy, magisterial biography, City Poet is also, it must be said, a work of model scholarship." - Jim Holt, Vanity Fair "A comprehensive and kaleidoscopic biography." - Edmund White, Vogue "Luminously written and terrifically evocative of American cultural life in the Eisenhower and Kennedy eras." - Celia McGee, New York Observer "As a portrait the book has a clarity and balance which makes Gooch's obvious affection for his subject very persuasive for the reader as well.Gooch delineates the social currents of O'Hara's life skillfully and entertainingly." - Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books "Not only is this book a joy to read, it's a necessary chronicle of a fascinating, often overlooked key character in modern American letters." - Los Angeles Times "The first biography of the poet Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) is also an extremely informative gossip-survey of the social and sexual mores of the New York avant-garde art scene in the 50s and 60s. Entertaining and readable.

" - San Francisco Chronicle.