Book Review: Jack London, An American Life

Over the years I've read snippets about the life of Jack London.  Everything I read led me to believe he had been an interesting man.  So when a new biography came out, Jack London: An American Life written by Earle Labor, I had enough interest to buy it.  I am very happy that I did.  The life that Jack London lived was an amazing one.  Amazing because he packed so much adventure, so much love for writing, so much love for animals, so much love for his wife into such a short life.  He was born in 1876 and died at the age of 40 in 1916.  What a life.  This may sound like hyperbole but what a man.  From the beginning,  London longed to succeed.  He had a lot going for him physically.  He was handsome, he was strong from all of the hard labor he did and even though he was shy, he never allowed himself to be bullied.  For him, to lose was not acceptable. He was not afraid to break the law in order to survive.  But during the time he was growing up, in order to survive, you did what you  had to do. Many of the situations he found himself in were places where human cruelty was the norm. By the age of 22 he had worked as a child laborer in a factory,  he was a professional oyster pirate, served time in prison for something he didn't do, ridden the rails as a hobo, worked as a sailor on a seal hunting schooner bound for Japan , marched as a soldier in an army of the unemployed for the betterment of the working man, and searched for gold in the Klondike.  He also became an alcoholic.