"Donaldson's skill is really a rare and fine art everyone who is interested in twentieth-century fiction or in the art of biography or in the mysterious relationship between the temperament of an artist and the work he produces should have By Force of Will within arm's reach. In its way it is a masterpiece." --Walter Sullivan, The Sewanee Review

"Not the least of its virtues is the way in which it allows its reader to play along with a masterly scholarly detective." --San Francisco Examiner