Flamboyant visual style, richly conceived characters, crisp dialogue and brilliant casting - Joel and Ethan Coen have pulled off the ultimate balancing act. Despite having their movies financed and distributed by major studios, they have somehow managed to remain true independents, rejecting commercial cliches, and never giving up on their own fiercely idiosyncratic vision. From their startling noir debut, Blood Simple to the cons-on-the-run comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, all their movies reveal a distinctive stamp. In this first ever biography of the sibling film-makers, Ronald Bergan traces the brothers' Jewish roots, their beginnings as film geeks in the suburbs of Minneapolis, their battles to get their first feature made and released. It is a fascinating portrait of the most imaginative, original, successful writer/director filmmakers to have emerged in the last twenty years.

Ronald Bergan is one of the world's best-known writers on film. He contributes to The Guardian and The Independent and has written numerous TV documentaries which have been broadcast all over the world. His books have been widely praised on both sides of the Atlantic.