Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring
"Finding a chronicler with the proper combination of familiarity and detachment can be like going on a series of bad Hinge dates, but in Gooch, Haring has met his match. Radiant, referring to both Haring's recurrent drawing of a crawling baby and his own fast-burning star, is a faithful retracing of his steps, with over 200 people interviewed or consulted: devoted and probably definitive...Gooch is a poet, which shows in phrasing at once shrewd and evocative...[His] book insists readers slow down and consider the artist's legacy."
-- The New York Times
"Haring's admirers continue to complain that he isn't taken seriously enough; in a way, they are correct , though this book may change things...highly entertaining.
-- The New Yorker
"Radiant does exactly what biographies of the exceptionally famous should do: gently, graciously, it reels in the myth, restoring the fleesh-and-bone reality...Gooch's descriptions of the booming East Village art scene are indelible...I cried upn finishing it."
--Washington Post
"Gooch made it his mission to show how much living and creating Haring packed into just 31 years, and he more than succeeds. Radiant not only gives an overdue appreciation of Haring as an important artist. It also paints an exhilirating portrait of a young artist finding himself and his calling."
-- Los Angeles Times
"A compelling biography...Gooch vividly evokes New York in the early 80s, surely one of the most culturally exciting eras of all time."
-- The Guardian
"Gooch's extensive research creates a seductive portrait of the artist as a young man...As on previous books on Frank O'Hara and Flannery O'Connor, Gooch writes bourbon-smooth prose.
-- Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Brad Gooch takes us deep into Keith Haring's imagination while somehow managing to fix the aura and energy of the 1980s art scene to the page. A keen-eyed, beautifully written biography, atmospheric, exuberant, and as radiant as they come."
-- Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Revolutionary: Sam Adams
"Gooch has produced the authoritative and likely definitive account of this emblematic, prophetic artist of the 1980s...Having lived in Haring's world, Gooch is superlative in recreating the excitement and volatility of that burgeonig East Side New York art scene, with its accompanying cultural upheaval. His prose shines."
-- Bay Area Reporter