Many admire it, but it is well-nigh unreadable. While relying heavily on Backscheider's research, West sidesteps the problem. It is not a bad thing to have attempted a popular biography. It is possible to be alive to history and yet to write accessibly about Defoe. But then Sutherland, a professor of English, wrote in a time before the absolute divide between the academic and the popularizer, the student and the general reader.
West dispenses with any academic virtues.
There are no dull pedantries such as page references, notes, or a bibliography. All this is laziness masquerading as accessibility. It is a pity, as there is some interesting and original writing buried in West's book. He represents Defoe as the greatest of all journalists, and he does have a feel for, and a genuine knowledge of, this aspect of his work. Single-handedly, Defoe produced his journal, the Review, three times a week for nine years.