While my daughter was performing in Glass Menagerie, I picked up a copy of Tennessee Williams's Memoirs hoping to learn how much of his sister Rose was portrayed in Laura. That was soon answered by his comment that "Laura of Menagerie was like Miss Rose only in her inescapable 'difference,' which that old female bobcat Amanda would not believe existed." The most lasting impression from this hurly-burly book is the tenderness,...
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If you like memoirs, written by great writers about themselves, you'll love this one. I was born in 1970, this was written not long after--my sense of being is way different than this guy. He wrote this himself in his later years, meanders here and there, but more in the end. Charming all the way thru. I'd heard that maybe this was a little racy, but again--only in the beginning. And even then, not nearly what you see...
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I think "badges of honor" (from a previous review) misses the mark. "Badges of dis-honor" would be closer to the truth. I think Williams' extremely destructive drug abuse and alcoholism are obvious escape hatches - escapes from his inner deamons, his possible self-loathing, and certainly an attempt to reconcile the loneliness that each artist has to contend with. The same isolation and deamons that Williams faced nearly destroyed...
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This book shocked and disappointed many upon its release in 1975. Many were expecting something resembling a predictable literary auto-biography, though, with the authors notorious history and reputation, should have been prepared for what they got instead. This is a fascinating book about and by the man many called genius, the author of "A Streetcar Named Desire", "The Glass Menagerie", "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof", "Sweet Bird...
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Really entertaining. The book does not go in for many facts, and yet it reveal william's strenghths and weaknesses anyway. A brilliantly wicked book by a self absorbed and somewhat selfish man. Fascinating stuff!
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