The truly outstanding biography is far more than the story of one person. In the hands of a superb writer, the biography becomes the portrayal of a generation. In addition, readers learn how the subject of the biography was shaped and influenced by the times in which he or she lived. In applying that test, many great biographies come to mind, too many to list in this review.

But Patrick McGilligan’s new book is clearly a biography that merits inclusion on this exalted list. It offers insights and details into the early life of an American legend. 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of Orson Welles’ birth, as well as the 75th anniversary of the release of his masterpiece film, Citizen Kane. YOUNG ORSON is a biography commensurate with the greatness of its subject.

McGilligan brings substantial credentials to his latest effort. His previous subjects include Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, George Cukor, James Cagney, Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, not far from Welles’ birthplace of Kenosha. YOUNG ORSON begins with an introduction of Welles’ parents, Richard and Beatrice. As a resident of Springfield, Illinois, I was interested to learn that Beatrice Ivy Welles grew up in my hometown, and her parents were acquainted with Abraham Lincoln. She was a talented woman who, after the death of her husband, played piano concerts at the Chicago Art Institute to support the family. She died at age 42, when Welles was nine years old.

"YOUNG ORSON is an absorbing, captivating and scholarly biography. McGilligan captures a man who truly is an iconic figure in theater and cinema."

Recognizing that YOUNG ORSON recounts merely 25 years of his life in its 747 pages, readers are not even introduced to Welles until around page 100. Fifty pages later, he is still in the seventh grade. Such attention to detail is reminiscent of Robert Caro’s biographies of Lyndon Johnson, and McGilligan’s superb writing keeps your attention through a very detailed accounting of Welles’ life.

While biographers sometimes are reluctant to use or attribute source material from earlier works, McGilligan is more than willing to mention and discuss previous Welles biographies. Based on his own exhaustive research, he takes great pains to provide fresh material that offers interesting insights into the genius that was Orson Welles. Although his parents died when he was very young, they both influenced his life. Welles was a complex man, mercurial in temperament, but so brilliant that most were willing to accept his eccentricities.

The accomplishments documented during the quarter-century detailed in YOUNG ORSON are amazing and would be a full lifetime of achievements for most people. As a teenager, Welles starred at the Gates Theater in Dublin. In his early 20s he directed an African-American cast of “Macbeth”in Harlem.With John Houseman he partnered in the Mercury Theater, leading to the iconic Halloween radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” that caused panic throughout the American east coast. And, of course, he traveled to Hollywood with almost unlimited authority and gave the world Citizen Kane, still viewed as one of the greatest movies ever. All of these events, along with many others, are recounted in superb detail, taking readers deep into Welles’ life.

YOUNG ORSON is an absorbing, captivating and scholarly biography. McGilligan captures a man who truly is an iconic figure in theater and cinema. Along the way, he vividly portrays life in Midwestern America in the first third of the 20th century and the years preceding World War II. In later years, the brilliant promise captured in YOUNG ORSON would often go unfulfilled, but the man chronicled on the pages of this outstanding biography left a list of triumphs that will live for generations to come.