Cursed Legacy: The Tragic Life of Klaus Mann

This absorbing biography draws a three-dimensional picture of the life of Klaus Mann, novelist, playwright, essayist, gay rights advocate, and seemingly the unluckiest man of letters in the years around WWII. Spotts (Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics) reveals Mann as a genius in his chosen profession, who saw his career thwarted on one hand by the rise of Nazism in his homeland and on the other by the specter of his withholding father, Thomas, the intimidating giant of early 20th century German literature. The author traces Klaus’s path from young, dilettantish provocateur in Munich to serious intellectual-in-exile in the U.S., where he tried (and failed) with increasing urgency to warn the public about Hitler. Mann wrote several now-celebrated works, most famously 1936’s Mephisto, a thinly veiled account of a real-life actor who sold his soul to the Third Reich, but Mann died at age 42, in poverty and relative obscurity. The arc of his story is as tragic as the subtitle promises but is peppered with enough drugs, flings, and cameos by famous names that it never feels like a slog. Spotts quotes liberally from Mann’s diary, which, with its references to life as a refugee and to America’s racial problems, feels particularly timely now. (Mar.)