Who was Max Jacob? A poet, friend of Picasso and, a new biography shows, a man who defied easy labels

Who was Max Jacob? That’s the question poet and University of Chicago professor Rosanna Warren circles around in this detailed, nearly 600-page biography, a project she has worked on for more than 30 years.

Born in Quimper, Brittany, in 1876, Jacob could never settle on, or settle for, a single identity — being a Jew, “cubist” poet, homosexual, painter, punster, experimental novelist, art critic, mimic, professional palm-reader, ether-addict, Kabbalist, Catholic convert, prolific letter-writer, mentor to the young and, for many years, the best friend of a Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso.