Well, I don’t know if it is because I haven’t received it yet, but coming my way is John Lahr‘s new biography of Tennessee Williams, one of my favourite playwrights. Called Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, it is published in the UK today. I am sure it will be more than just a good read, though—Lahr is a terrific writer, and the reviews I have seen so far have been glowing.
Tennessee Williams on location during the filming of his play, The Night of the Iguana.
I am so pleased that this book has finally been published. I have the first instalment of the biographical series, if it can be called that: Lyle Leverich‘s Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams, which was published in 1995 and followed Williams’ life up to 1945, ending as Williams worked on A Streetcar Named Desire. Leverich died in 1999 before he could complete his second part of the biography, and had asked that Lahr should take over the task. I was very sad to hear of Leverich’s death because he had done such a magnificent job on Tom, but I couldn’t have been happier to learn of Lahr’s involvement.
John Lahr. Photo by Jill Krementz.
Lahr wrote my all-time favourite biography, the magisterial Prick Up Your Ears, the biography of Joe Orton, as well as editing Orton’s wonderfully scurrilous and funny diaries and writing the preface to Orton’s collected plays. Orton is, I think, my all-time favourite playwright (what is it with me and gay playwrights?). I love his black humour, his irreverent take on life, and his joyous way with words. He came from Leicester, where I grew up, so maybe I feel a special affinity with him because of this.
In 1988 Lahr came to talk about Orton at the bookshop in Leicester in which I was working. At the time the Haymarket Theatre was putting on two of Orton’s lesser-known plays (The Ruffian on the Stair and The Erpingham Camp), and there was a display of related photographs and artwork in the foyer of the theatre. I cheekily asked the manager if we could borrow a huge black and white photo of Orton for the evening, and he kindly agreed—I remember walking through the streets carrying this massive portrait of one of Leicester’s most (in)famous sons, and chuckling to myself that he was being fêted in the city of which he had never thought too fondly. Lahr’s talk was fascinating, and Orton’s sister Leonie was there too, and answered questions about Joe’s life. It was a very special night. I had taken along all my Lahr books for him to sign, and they are now among my most treasured possessions.
Joe Orton.
And nicely completing the circle, I learned not too long ago that Williams greatly admired Orton, and even dedicated a play to his memory.
As well as Williams’ collected plays and short stories, I have a very small collection of books on Williams, only a tiny proportion of the hundreds that have been written about him. Chap bought me the Leverich book when it was published, and others I have picked up at second-hand bookshops. I have Williams’ Memoirs (published in 1972), highly selective and self-censored, as became apparent when I read Leverich; Tennessee Williams’ Letters to Donald Windham 1940-1965, edited by Donald Windham and published in 1977; and another, rather less satisfactory biography, The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams, by Donald Spoto and published in 1985. Lahr’s book is going to be well-thumbed before too long.
Lahr’s book has been the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 this week, read by Damian Lewis. I admire how the abridger has managed to distil the 784 pages documenting the last 37 years of Williams’ hectic life into 75 minutes. No mean feat!