From the earliest moments of Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, it is clear that this latest undertaking from the journalist Janet Malcolm isn't quite an ordinary biography. As the inaugural scenes of Malcolm perusing The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book signal, it is instead a convention-defying intellectual hodgepodge -- part memoir, part critical inquiry, part literary mystery. As is her wont, Malcolm has latched onto one of our literary legends and set about unearthing the facts of her life with a journalist's investigative rigor. Although she nominally joins the ranks of Stein scholars, Malcolm is never quite one of them: She maintains enough distance to unapologetically separate herself from the pack. For instance, here is Malcolm on Ulla Dydo, Edward Burns, and Bill Rice, the triumvirate of tireless Stein apostles: "[They] often spoke of Toklas as a liar. When I asked them to give me examples of her lies, they were at a loss, but adhered to their conviction of her untruthfulness."