Longlisted for the NBCC Award for Autobiography "[A] deeply moving book . Blurring the lines between life and death, fiction and reality, Twice Born is, ultimately, neither Justin Kaplan's biography nor Hester Kaplan's autobiography but both things creatively meshed . Twice Born splendidly delivers what Hester at the beginning of her quest said she was looking for--something that would, at long last, 'unburden' both her father and herself." --Christoph Irmscher, On the Seawall "Formally and emotionally complicated . Hester becomes a biographer of her biographer father, hoping to feel how it felt for him to live his life by reading what he wrote of other, more famous lives." --Anthony Domestico, Commonweal "Lovely and tender . The child of a writer has much to write about--Hes­ter Kaplan does so with gleam­ing insights into her father's rhythms." --Sam Franzini, Jewish Book Council "[An] affecting memoir.

" --Sophia Stewart, The Millions "[An] affecting memoir . Melancholy and meticulously written, this excavation of a literary lineage isn't easy to forget." -- Publishers Weekly "Written in a rich, evocative language . A daughter's searching memoir, reflecting on the perils and promises of biography and the art of reading the self." -- Kirkus Reviews "Hester Kaplan does with memoir what her acclaimed father Justin did with biography--finds the right subject, makes it new, and teaches us how to write with great compassion and grace." --Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek "Justin Kaplan was a brilliant biographer and a role model for many of us. In this intimate and unflinching look at her oh-so-private father, Hester Kaplan makes clear she has inherited Justin's genes for understated, artful and illuminating narrative." --Larry Tye, author of Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon "In this acutely observed, beautifully drawn portrait, Hester Kaplan searches for her eminent biographer father through his work--especially on Mark Twain--as well as through his silences, secrets, and her own vivid memories.

And with deep imaginative empathy, she finds him." --Jean Strouse, author of Family Romance: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers "While the course of a life once lived cannot be changed, its meaning can be, and that magic happens here. A loving daughter draws on a deep well of feeling, and a skilled writer draws on hard-earned wisdom, to bring irresistibly to life the ingenious but wounded figures of her unforgotten father, of his greatest subject--and of Hester Kaplan herself, who is every bit their match. Exquisite biography. Heart-rending memoir. Twice born. Twice blest." --James Carroll, author of An American Requiem "A magnificent combination of memoir and biography, Twice Born is a work of reconciliation and a resurrection of the extraordinary man who gave us Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and at last, through his daughter's magic, his own passionate heart.

" --Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.