The Journals of Spalding Gray
-
-
5.0 • 3 Ratings
-
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
Riveting, funny, heartbreaking, at once raw and lyrical: these journals reveal the complexity of the actor/writer who invented the autobiographical monologue and perfected the form in such celebrated works as Swimming to Cambodia.
Here is the first intimate portrait we have of the man behind the charismatic performer who ended his life in 2004: evolving artist, conflicted celebrity, a man struggling for years with depression before finally succumbing to its most desperate impulse. Begun when he was twenty-five, the journals give us Gray’s reflections on his childhood; his craving for success; the downtown New York arts scene of the 1970s; his love affairs, marriages and fatherhood; his travels in Europe and Asia; and throughout, his passion for the theater, where he worked to balance his compulsion to tell all with his terror of having his deepest secrets exposed.
Culled from more than five thousand pages and including interviews with friends, colleagues, lovers, and family, The Journals of Spalding Gray gives us a haunting portrait of a creative genius who we thought had told us everything about himself—until now.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
These selections from the journals of actor and monologist Spalding Gray span the late 60s through his untimely death in 2004, providing a fascinating glimpse into his psyche, personal life, and how he approached his work. The cast includes Gray's mother (who committed suicide in 1967), the three women he loved (Liz LeCompte, Ren e Shafransky, and Kathleen Russo), his psychiatrist Paul Pavel, and later, his two sons. Gray is not easy to like a narcissistic alcoholic, abusive to the women in his life, jealous of others' success but he manages to charm, and ultimately wins the reader's sympathy. Casey does an excellent job filling in the blanks with biographical information and narrates most of the last few years of Gray's life when, depressed and suffering from brain damage, he was in and out of mental hospitals and rarely wrote in his journal. The few chilling entries that are included from this time show a man obsessed with committing suicide. Fans of Gray's work will savor this window into the mind of a complicated genius.
Customer Reviews
Highly recommended for fans of Spalding Gray
Highly recommended for fans of Spalding Gray. Nell Casey has deftly assembled Gray’s journals, notes and tapes and interspersed explanatory passages to provide background and clarify some of Gray’s arcane references. She has also included helpful excerpts from interviews conducted with Kathleen Russo, Elizabeth LeCompte, Willem Dafoe, Eric Begosian, Steven Soderbergh, Jonathan Demme, and Spalding’s brothers Rockwell and Channing. The one disappointment, no fault of Ms. Casey’s, is that Reneé Shafransky did not contribute to ‘The Journals’. Without Ms. Shafransky, Gray’s girlfriend and wife of 14 or so years and she who directed his monologues, produced his films, edited his writing, and guided him, one wonders if Spalding Gray would have risen to the heights he did. I am left hoping that one day Reneé Shafransky writes their story.