Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser — Summary & Review

If you think you know Susan Sontag, think again. Benjamin Moser’s biography, “Sontag: Her Life and Work,” is not your quick-hit celebrity intellectual profile. It’s a sprawling, 832-page excavation of a woman who refused to be pinned down, intellectually or personally. Moser doesn’t just chronicle Sontag’s public triumphs; he drags her into the light of her private struggles, her relationships, and the messy contradictions that made her human.

Sontag was a prodigy, no doubt. From a young age, she devoured ideas and challenged norms. But Moser shows that her brilliance came with a cost: a restless, often turbulent inner life. Her personal relationships—especially with her son David Rieff and photographer Annie Leibovitz—were complicated, sometimes fraught with tension and unspoken wounds. The biography doesn’t shy away from the darker corners of her life, including her battles with illness and the loneliness that no amount of intellectual acclaim could soothe.

What makes this book stand out is its balance between the cerebral and the intimate. Moser’s access to Sontag’s private archives—unpublished journals, letters, and papers—lets readers in on moments Sontag herself might have preferred to keep hidden. This isn’t a sanitized hagiography. It’s a portrait of a thinker wrestling with her own contradictions: the desire to be understood but also to mystify; the hunger for connection paired with a fierce independence.

On the intellectual front, Moser unpacks Sontag’s major works with care and clarity. Essays like “Against Interpretation” and “Notes on ‘Camp’” are given the attention they deserve—not just as cultural landmarks but as windows into her evolving worldview. Her novels and films get their due as well, showing how her creative impulses extended beyond essays into storytelling and visual media. Moser paints Sontag as a restless experimenter, always pushing boundaries and refusing to settle into a single identity.

Politically, Sontag was no shrinking violet. Her activism and public stances—on issues from the Vietnam War to AIDS—were part of her intellectual armor and her moral compass. Yet Moser presents these not as simple badges of virtue but as complex engagements shaped by her personal experiences and contradictions. She was a public figure who often kept private doubts and insecurities carefully tucked away.

The biography’s sheer length and detail might intimidate casual readers. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. But for anyone fascinated by 20th-century intellectual history or the cultural shifts that shaped our world, it’s a treasure trove. Moser’s writing is empathetic without being indulgent, critical without being dismissive. He doesn’t pretend to have all the answers about Sontag’s psychology or motivations, but he gives you enough raw material to wrestle with her yourself.

Of course, no biography is perfect. Some critics have pointed out that Moser’s interpretations of Sontag’s personal life can feel speculative or not much deeper than what her own diaries reveal. And the book’s dense, sometimes academic tone might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Still, it’s hard to imagine a more thorough or nuanced portrait of Sontag in print.

In the end, “Sontag: Her Life and Work” is less about turning Susan Sontag into a neatly packaged icon and more about embracing the messy, contradictory, brilliant human she was. If you’re up for the challenge, it’s an unforgettable journey.