In Looking for Farrakhan, Florence Levinsohn has written an unconventional biography. Starting from historical fact, her book is a meditation on the black experience in America that helped transform the young Eugene Walcott into Louis Farrakhan; on the circumstances that brought him to power as leader of the Nation of Islam; on the policies and programs of this curious but imposing organization; and, most of all, on Farrakhan himself.

Ms. Levinsohn's thoughtful search for the man behind the myth is the product of a lifetime of reporting and writing on black life in America.

With the eye of an accomplished journalist and the diligence of a bloodhound, she traces Farrakhan's rise from his boyhood as a West Indian in Boston - acolyte of his Episcopal church, top student, winning track star, talented violinist and later an accomplished popular singer, the Charmer - through his hidden anger and resentment to his leadership of the Nation and his role in the larger black community. Her portrait uncovers a religious zealot who sees himself in a long tradition of black saviors, who senses white hostility everywhere - and is often right. Along the way, Ms. Levinsohn considers the content of Farrakhan's character and the substance of his ideas.

And she presents a man far more complex, far more dangerous than the one seen in ten-second sound bites on the evening news.