TWENTIETH-CENTURY MAN, the wild life of Peter Beard

272pp., hardback, New York, 2023

Biography of American photographer and naturalist Peter Beard (1938 -2020), author of The End of the Game (1965).

“Wallace blends biography, art criticism, reportage and essayistic digressions to create a portrait of a man so disillusioned with civilization that he sought to ‘rewild himself’ ... Wallace’s thesis about a playboy intent on living according to his untamed impulses ... is convincingly argued in Twentieth-Century Man, and Beard is sharper as a result. It helps that Wallace adopts a tone that seems exactly right for his unusual subject, a sort of 'Can you believe this guy?' breathlessness that would be familiar to readers of GQ. Wallace also drops any pretense at objective distance, preferring something more intimate and brashly opinionated." Washington Post

Writer Christopher Wallace has been the US editor of Mr Porter and the executive editor of Interview magazine. His writing has appeared in the Paris Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Times, New Republic, Atlantic, and Guernica, among other publications.