Rich Man, Poor Man

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

IRWIN SHAW: A BIOGRAPHY

by Michael Shnayerson

Putnam; 447 pages; $24.95

When he was young and poor, Irwin Shaw wrote well. His first play, Bury the Dead, was an emblematic work of social- protest theater in the 1930s. His lyrically realistic New Yorker short stories in the same era expanded the form's horizons, and, because he made it look easy -- almost fun -- to be so good, they became inspiring, formative experiences for several generations of writers.

When he was old and rich, Shaw wrote poorly, at least according to critical consensus. The only horizon his mighty best seller Rich Man, Poor Man expanded was that of the television mini-series. And the rest of his late work inspired little beyond envy of the author's expensive expatriate life, which the work subsidized.

It is possible that if Shaw had imagined his life instead of living it, he might have turned it into another best seller. As Michael Shnayerson's admirably researched and readable biography demonstrates, the story has all the elements of a good airplane read: an energetic and engaging protagonist who transcends humble Brooklyn Jewish origins to become a symbol of his generation's promise before he is 30; war years in which he serves as a member of a dashing documentary-film unit, enabling him to meet all the right people from Cairo to London and to see just enough action to lend authenticity to The Young Lions, the epic war novel that made him famous; a middle passage in which he fritters away critical and popular esteem while pursuing the good life in Paris, the Riviera and, above all, Klosters, the Swiss ski resort that ^ he and the beautiful, occasionally talented people he drew to him made famous. The ending even produces the kind of Faustian moral that goes down well in popular fiction: the hero achieves a full measure of worldly success but at the cost of his artistic soul.

Shnayerson, one of those rare, lucky biographers who are able to maintain affection for their subjects throughout, mounts a spirited but finally too conventional defense of Shaw's late work and life. The prose was always better than that of Judith Krantz and her ilk, Shnayerson notes, even in the most improbable tales. Moreover, he argues, the glittering "sweep" of these 71 years in themselves represents an artful construction, worthy of the sometimes numbing detail with which he recites old guest lists.

It is true that in novels like Nightwork Shaw could provide very intelligent entertainment. It is also true that in the midst of glitz he remained an agreeable, unpretentious man. But much of the late fiction was unbearably wooden, and much of the late life was marred by Shaw's insatiable womanizing. In the end, conviviality deteriorated to an often befuddled alcoholism that was more distressing than Shnayerson cares to admit.

Shaw was betrayed by his own facility. On the night in 1936 that Bury the Dead had its first public performance, he was signing to write his first movie, something called The Big Game. And that was pretty much the way it went with him thereafter. There was nothing he couldn't write, so there was nothing he didn't write. Preoccupied by productivity and the demands of his life- style, he had no time left to develop the guiding vision of self and world a major novelist needs.

Finally, the case for Irwin Shaw must rest on the short stories, in which the force of simple observation, uncomplicated inspiration, modest but authentic craftsmanship are sufficient to sustain both writer and reader. A life devoted to such work might not have inspired a biography as lively as this one. But it might have provided the truly exemplary qualities Shnayerson strains so hard to find.