Henry Darger, Throwaway Boy: The Tragic Life of an Outsider Artist

“[Elledge] has written the definitive account of an artist who alchemized tragedy into art of transcendent and disturbing power.” —OUT Magazine

“A rich portrait of the outsider artist’s life, scaffolded with a decade’s worth of research.” —NY Arts Magazine

“Delves further into one of the most enigmatic artists of the twentieth century, reveals minute details, and answers hotly debated questions about Darger’s life, his loves, his passions, his daily life, the misconceptions surrounding him, and what it meant to be an exiled artist.” —Bay Area Reporter

“In the world of overwrought biographies that love the tragic artist mythology and the profit-based art-world hype machine, Elledge’s book is the closest you might come to getting at the actual truth of the artist.”—Bookslut

“Prolific author and editor Elledge presents an extraordinarily compassionate and adventurously researched biography of the self-taught Chicago artist, Henry Darger. Drawing on his far-ranging investigation and keen psychological perception, Elledge poignantly and convincingly argues that the torture Darger depicted and his fantasies of revenge and rescue were cathartic responses to the traumas he suffered. Now, 40 years after Darger’s death, justice is finally served in Elledge’s gripping, humanizing, and haunting portrait of the artist as a wronged man.” —Booklist, Starred Review

“Ostracized in life and vilified after his death, Henry Darger is the ultimate American anti-hero. Elledge reveals Darger as a damaged, fearful, gay man, raised in a world unaware of the consequences of child abuse or gay shame—and his strange art as a triumph over trauma.” —Dick Donahue