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Title: His Brother's Keeper: The Life and Murder of Tennessee Williams by Dakin Williams ISBN: 0-87795-488-7 Publisher: Arbor House Pub Co Pub. Date: 20 January, 1983 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Lifelong Contest Between Demons and Angels
Comment: If you want to understand the making of great literature, I recommend reading this biography of Tennessee Williams. Written by the playwright's brother Dakin and best selling author Shepherd Mead, this book provides an unparalleled look at the details of Williams' personal and professional life -- and the broad context in which he lived it. It makes the case that the creation of literary art is immeasurably complex, incalculably random, and probably painful. A successful author must do infinitely more than "Pass Go and Collect $200".
In this biography we learn of Williams' unbelievable drive to express himself through the written word. With an inborn skill and restless energy, he strove to express his innermost feelings, and he did so with an honesty that stripped naked his tortured soul.
To Williams, life was a contest between the demons and angels that dwell within us all. It was a competition between the noblest human aspirations and the undisciplined indulgence of the basest human urges. But more than this, Williams drew his material from acute yet sympathetic observations of the entire human race, from the mighty to the dregs of society. To this, Williams added a creative use of symbols more powerful in eliciting emotions and comprehension than a mere reconstruction of graphic reality.
Lest one think all of this came easily for Williams, his daily routine usually began with writing at the crack of dawn, fueled by strong black coffee, and proceeded uninterrupted until lunch time. Ideas for plays often began as poems, evolved through one-act plays, and then grew into full fledged films and dramas -- a process that could span even decades and then conclude with new lines written during rehearsal.
One final note: Williams' success also depended on the fortunate and unfortunate happenings of life, happenings beyond a grand plan -- chance meetings with producers, directors, actors and actresses who were perfectly suited -- or incompetent -- for projecting the messages Williams committed to paper. All of us depend at some point on "the kindness of strangers."
If you want to know more about these things, you should read this truly "intimate biography" of Tennessee Williams, one of the world's greatest and most honored dramatists, from his birth in Mississippi as the son of a traveling salesman for a men's clothing company, to the unnatural end of his life in a New York City luxury apartment.
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Title: The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume I: 1920-1945 by Tennessee Williams, Albert J. Devlin, Nancy M. Tischler ISBN: 081121527X Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams by Lyle Leverich ISBN: 0393316637 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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