Another Q-&-A hit the web this week, this one with the Portland Tribune.

And then there’s this humblingly positive review from Peter Martin at Twitch.

Publishers Weekly chimed in as well, somewhat neutrally.

There was a nice note about this week’s Powell’s event in the Portland Mercury.

I was on the radio in Ireland on the Moncrieff show, which went something like this (starts at the 7:00 mark).

Finally, my visit to KATU-TV’s “AM Northwest” resulted in this segment (Note to self: stripey shirt = not so much):

It is, apparently, an era of Q-&-A interviews — which, as a journalist I understand (it’s quicker) but as an author I rather bridle against (it’s more work to write my answers out than simply to say ’em).

Anyhow, “De Niro: A Life” has occasioned two such interviews in recent days:

— One from Reuters which has been translated and published (often in print) all around the world.

— One with my old friend Byron Beck, who currently writers for GoLocalPDX.

And, what the heck, one non-Q-&-A, a brief but enthusiastic item in Portland Monthly.

And if you’re weary of reading my words in Q-&A format, how about watching it?

Here’s my visit to KGW-TV’s “Live at 7”:

Week two of the release of “De Niro:  A Life,” and I’ve got some nuggets to share.

Firstly:  My appearance on Weds morning (Sydney time; Tuesday afternoon here) on Australia’s “Mornings” talk show.

Then a couple of print Q-and-A interviews:  one in Word and Film, one in Biographile.

There was also a brief chat about the book — and about my pal Glenn Kenny’s “Robert De Niro: Anatomy of an Actor” — on Hollywood Elsewhere (check the comments where Glenn and I muse on the strange coincidence of two De Niro books in one year).

EVENTS

If you’re in the Portland area, I’ve got three personal appearances coming up:

• On November 11, I’ll be downtown at Powell’s City of Books for a traditional reading-&-signing event.
•  On November 16, I’ll be at the Northwest Film Center for a screening of “A Bronx Tale,” De Niro’s directorial debut.
•  On December 8 12, I’ll be at the Hollywood Theatre for a screening of “Bang the Drums Slowly.” (NOTE NEW DATE)

(NOTE:  Both of those film events will have reading-&-signing components.)

Lastly, as before, the book is available in print and/or in digital formats at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, and other purveyors of words-on-paper and/or -screens.

The book hit shelves — brick-and-mortar and digital — yesterday, and it was greeted by a fair bit of noise.

First, a pair of reviews:  one in my hometown paper (and former employer) The Oregonian; one in the film- focused web site FlickSided.

Then there was this:  a round-up of the most personally embarrassing and scandalous material in the book ginned up by the Daily Mail of London.

I have a few thoughts to share on that last one.  Yes, it all really happened and can be verified and was vetted by a lawyer prior to publication.  And yes, I learned about it and wrote it.  But it represents perhaps 1% of my work, as opposed to 100% of the Mail’s.  My 600 pages are  far more concerned, as the reviewers above have noted, with the working life of a great artist than with the private life of a man who was on top of the world through much of the ’70s and ’80s and lived the high life of that era as many others in his milieu did.  These things happened; but they are not the whole man and they are most definitely not the whole story that I have written about the man.

There is no way to write a full biography without addressing the entire life of the subject.  The biographer simply must report what is out there to be found (and, crucially, what can be verified).  But I chose repeatedly in my years of research and writing to emphasize the thing that has made De Niro famous — his astonishing art — rather than the dirt I might have found under his fingernails; and I most assuredly did not follow every whiff of smoke that I cam across with the hope of finding the fire of scandal.  I wrote about an artist, his choices, his technique, and his impact.  Without De Niro’s art, after all, we wouldn’t know of him at all.  And then what would the Mail’s headline be:  “Unknown Man Indulges in Sex and Drugs”?  I think not.

Anyhoo, as before, the book is available in print and/or in digital formats at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, and other purveyors of words-on-paper and/or -screens.