King: A Life by Jonathan Eig (review)

Reviewed by: King: A Life by Jonathan Eig Charles W. Eagles King: A Life. By Jonathan Eig. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023. Pp. x, 669. 35. 00, ISBN 978-0-374-27929-5. ) Jonathan Eig's important new biography goes far beyond the saintly symbol and "smoothed and polished" image of Martin Luther King Jr. (p. 556). Instead Eig, a former writer with the Wall Street Journal, presents "the End Page 456 complicated King, the flawed King, the human King, the radical King"; the four implied themes run throughout the book (p. 557). To develop his themes, Eig draws on extensive research in new sources to add fascinating details, greater depth, and new dimensions to King's well-known story. First, the complicated King begins with his relationship with his father, Martin Luther King Sr. , "a powerful, feared presence" and sometime "bully" (pp. 30, 178). The son's seeking both to please his strong father and to establish his own independence caused constant conflict that, Eig suggests, "would shape his the son's life" (p. 31). It made King Jr. dislike personal conflict and contributed to his interest in nonviolence. As a result, "one of the world's leading dissidents preferred to steer clear of dissidence" (p. 392). In another example of King's complicated personality, Eig discusses King's "mixture of political agitation and gospel"; he was both "a prophet and a political operative" (pp. 147, 315). Second, the flawed King appears in his plagiarism and philandering. According to Eig, at the age of fifteen King copied parts of his address in a public-speaking contest from a book of prizewinning speeches (later King falsely claimed to have won the contest). He also borrowed, or stole, his first sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, plagiarized a paper in his first semester in seminary, and copied parts of his Boston University dissertation from a book. Eig too easily refers to the last as "King's indiscretions, regardless of their cause, " and offers no real explanation (p. 111). Further evidence of King's flawed nature appeared in his continual affairs, which his wife knew about when they married. By 1957, rumors of his adultery were circulating, and in the 1960s the FBI wiretaps emphasized them. Eig does, however, keep King's sexual activities in perspective. Third, in addition to plagiarism and infidelity, evidence of the human King appears in many references to King's depression; Eig mentions, too, King's repeated hospitalization for exhaustion. King's colleagues even considered seeking psychiatric treatment for him. The human King also develops in the discussion of his marriage to Coretta Scott. The fullness of Eig's treatment of her exceeds that of previous biographers. Talented, educated, intelligent, inclined to activism, warm, and loyal, Coretta King "saw herself as a coworker" with her husband, and he depended on her support and advice (p. 275). Their marriage seems to have worked despite his adultery. Fourth, according to Eig, the preacher tried to make "the radical gospel seem reasonable" early in his career, but the radical King really emerged in his last years (p. 147). Eig argues that King was not as antagonistic toward Malcolm X as many have claimed, and in reaction to Black Power, King "seemed to reject the motto more than the philosophy" (p. 495). Though Eig does not see King as a socialist, he does find that King "began to strike more anticapitalist themes" when his attention shifted nationwide (p. 505). Eig breaks his narrative in half at the summer of 1963, between the Birmingham campaign and the March on Washington. The middle of 1963 marked both the peak of King's power and a shift from the South to a "nationwide revolution" (p. 313). The first half of the book focuses sharply on King, while the second half blurs a bit as it widens to encompass J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Black radicals, northerners, and the Vietnam War. The biography End Page 457 ends abruptly with King's murder and does not even discuss King's funeral. Eig's forty-five brisk chapters benefit from his clear, engaging writing. New sources provide Eig with important information and insights. For example. . .