LAST BOHEMIAN: The Life and Times of Jonathan David Batchelor Part I opens on a moist summer night in the rural Northern California town of Canyon around 2005. Biographer Julia Antoinette Rosenstein stands frozen in her bedroom as fire spreads throughout the large house that belonged to her friend, Jonathan David Batchelor, until his death two years earlier at about age 90.
Despite the fire, Rosenstein was able to chronicle the first third of Batchelor’s life (from the early to mid-twentieth century). She details his accomplishments, passion for nature, financial setbacks, profound hearing problems, and a chaotic first marriage that led to binge drinking and infidelity. Subtitled “Part I,” this biography only covers the artist’s life up to 1943—so it doesn’t talk about his eight children or three of his four marriages.
Rosenstein, who considered herself Batchelor’s “soul-friend,” lived with him for his last 18 years partly because he helped her “navigate” a life complicated by autism. She describes herself as an “archiveologist” who excavated and organized the rooms of his home jammed with artwork and piles of paper, including bills, correspondence, manuscripts, and family history.
Batchelor dropped out of high school just before graduation and couldn’t go to college, despite being gifted academically and artistically. Yet Batchelor found ways to continue his education by assisting professional artists and learning life drawing by observing the patients in a military hospital where he did menial work. Eventually, the budding professional moved back to the Bay Area, where he was employed as an artist by the Works Progress Administration. When the WPA assignments ended, Batchelor did manual labor at local shipyards where he ran afoul of coworkers who didn’t like hearing his anti-war opinions and Marxist-like philosophy about equality. This led to a forced stint at a Civilian Public Service camp for artistic pacifists along the Oregon coast.
It’s perplexing that Rosenstein often fails to add dates to important events. One simple yet glaring example is that she doesn’t mention Batchelor’s death date, which the reader has to look up online. Also, dates and attributions are often missing for the many photos and artworks included in the book. Nevertheless, the author still immerses you in Batchelor’s life, such as when she describes his childhood wanderings through the tidal flats of Berkeley, California, where he “cherished roaming miles through soaring cattails.”
Readers likely would appreciate a timeline of major events (and a genealogical chart) in Part II, but LAST BOHEMIAN is still a vibrant account of a fascinating life.
Although this complicated life story would benefit from a clearer chronology, Julia Antoinette Rosenstein’s LAST BOHEMIAN: The Life and Times of Jonathan David Batchelor Part I is still a lively read.
~Alicia Rudnicki for IndieReader