The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams

About this book

This is the first complete critical biography of Tennessee Williams (19111983) one of Americas finest playwrights and the author of (among many important works) The Glass Menagerie Summer and Smoke A Streetcar Named Desire Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Suddenly Last Summer and The Night of the Iguana. Award-winning biographer Donald Spoto gives us not only a full and accurate account of Williamss life he also reveals the intimate connections between the playwrights personal dramas and his remarkably autobiographical art. From his birth into a genteel Southern family through his success celebrity and wealth to his drug addictions promiscuity and creative struggles Tennessee Williams lived a life as gripping as his plays. The Kindness of Strangers based on Williamss own papers his mothers diaries and interviews with scores of friends lovers and professional associates is in the authors words a portrait of "a man more disturbing more d