Memoirs

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, almost reverence, of his feeling for Rose. Even his redoubtable mother is treated with gently barbed irony. Yes, there is an incredible amount of sex (seven times in one night? A man with a serious heart condition?) but the tenderness comes through more and more until you just want to take care of this troubled guy, who poignantly remarks that while he often announced he was about to fall down, hardly anyone ever caught him. Revealing, sometimes scathing portraits of theater people and others enliven the book; his loving account of Anna Magnani for example is a delight. Hemingway, he writes, "struck me as a gentleman who seemed to have a very touchingly shy quality about him." Eccentric and informal in style, honest and probing for still deeper truths about his life and work, Memoirs leaves me with the sense that I have actually met and come to care for a rare human being.

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 when you tune into any television station. Really, just a glimpse into what gay men of his era went through (a good glimpse). When I realized what gold I had in my hands I slowed way down with this one--he writes in a way that makes you want to savor. It's a whole different time, you hafta listen. Thank you older gay men, you paved the way.

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 Michelangelo - and they did kill Virginia Woolf, Francis Bacon, and Oscar Wilde. I still think "Iguana" and "Streetcar" are among the finest literature in the American canon, while "Suddenly Last Summer" is among the most compelling psychological (if not philosophical) horror stories ever written. In fact, it's worthy of Poe. Tennessee Williams can be difficult and disturbing, because he NEVER lies to us. Every one of his works renders him defenseless - and by extension our defenses are stipped bare as well. Only the greatest authors, artists, and poets are able to do this. No thoughtful person is quite the same after delving into the work of Tennessee Williams. I think that's an awesome power to possess - and William's never abuses it. Instead, he saved the abuse for himself. I'm still coming to terms with this.

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 Of Youth", "Night Of The Iguana", etc..., and the events in his life that help one better understand just how autobiographical many of his works were. From his upbringing by a tyrannical, indifferent father, who was disappointed in his "sissy" son, his overbearing mother, and his relationship with his lifelong, deepest love, his sister Rose, whose tragic mental illness and lobotomy froze her in time, and perhaps was the most important factor in his troubled life and his creative genius. He was all too human, in his relationships and insecurities. He exposes himself, warts and all, at once being an extremely sensitive, caring human being, who at other times in his life, could turn into an irrational, paranoid, abusive chore to be around. Substance abuse certainly played a major part in his progressive personal and professional demise, and he is brutally honest about that also. He is also unapologetic about the many promiscuous periods of his life, the bluntness of his recounting of sexual escapades usually so humorously told, that it defuses what could have been just vulgar bad taste, to some. His 14 year love relationship with Frank Merlo, who died of cancer in the early 1960's, was, aside from Rose, the most important relationship of his life. Though he and Merlo were estranged towards the end of Merlos life, then had a reconciliation just prior to his death, Tennessee was to never recover from the loss. He also tells about the beginning of his career, and certain pivitol moments in his professional life when, before fame and praise came, it was doubtful that the poor, struggling writer might ever find success. There are also wonderful first hand insights into his contact with the likes of Brando, Anna Magnani, Capote, to name a few. But, admittedly, this book is more about the man than the career. He readily concedes that he is not about to bore himself and some readers to death with chronological descriptions about the fruition of each play. As he says here: "The plays, what about them? If this was a book only about my plays, it would be a very short book. The plays speak for themselves". In fact, there is nothing chronological about this book. It was published about ten years before his tragic death, a period in his life that , after a brilliant career with successive hits, was marked by professional failure, the progression of which was publicly recorded by ,what many perceived to be, unusually aggressive critics who were intent on destroying him personally. If you're looking for a standard auto-bio of a literary career,

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!