Memoirs

When <i>Memoirs </i>was first published in 1975 it created quite a bit of turbulence in the media--though long self-identified as a gay man Williams' candour about his love life sexual encounters and drug use was found shocking in and of itself and such revelations by America's greatest living playwright were called a raw display of private life by <i>The New York Times Book Review</i>. As it turns out more than thirty years later Williams' look back at his life is not quite so scandalous as it once seemed; he recalls his childhood in Mississippi and St. Louis his prolonged struggle as a starving artist the overnight success of <i>The Glass Menagerie </i>in 1945 the death of his long-time companion Frank Merlo in 1962 and his confinement to a psychiatric ward in 1969 and subsequent recovery from alcohol and drug addiction all with the same directness compassion and insight that epitomize his plays.