Edward Albee: A Singular Journey: A Biography

by Mel Gussow

A comprehensive portrait of the critically acclaimed playwright reveals Albee's struggle with alcoholism, his troubled personal life and unhappy childhood, and the genius that made him one of the most admired literary men of his generation. 17,500 first printing.

Genres: Biography, Theatre, LGBT, Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published August 18, 1999

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sensitive report on Albee and the production of his
plays. "Personal" dets are not in this semi-official
bio, but the grotesque shadow of his adoptive parents
is always there. So is the suicide of composer William
Flanagan, a mentor-partner whose music career dried up
as Albee's dramatic one soared. Though Albee essentially
rewrites the same material, he captures an uncommon ache
with dramatic effect. Which is what the bio writing lacks.

Coming to stardom in the uptight early 60s, Albee was the first "name" dramatist not to hide his sex preference. This resulted in a bizarre rage against him -- all of it coming from a certain tribe of pundits. Not knowing any of Albee's bio -- adopted by unloving, horrid parents -- critic Stanley Kauffman accused Albee of writing a distorted picture of American women and marriage. He has, pissed Stanley, created a "two sex version of the one sex experience." Then Philip Wroth weighed in, for we can't proceed without the wrath of Roth : Albee wrote "gay fantasies," he said, spilling what was left of Roth's diseased seed. Critic Robert Brustein angrily found Albee's work "deeply homosexual." Screenwriter William Goldman, another member of this tribe, screamed the relationships were all "boy-boy" stuff. John Simon also chimed in. A curious and dangerous clique, no ?

These fellas had one thing in common. Can you guess what it was? Well, think.

They were all hateful and mentally ill. It took the erudite critic-essayist Benjamin DeMott to put these a/holes in their rightful place...(read "Supergrow," 1969, Dutton). Playwright A.J. Gurney, also disgusted with the abusive assaults, assured Albee that he was "our best playwright."

Albee went through 7 or so years of alcoholism after the attacks...and then returned with renewed creative force in 1991 with "Three Tall Women," a Pulitzer winner and possibly his best play. NYRB carried an excellent piece on Albee by Fintan O'Toole, Sept 23, 2004. (His mother at last was dead and her loathesome shadow had diminished.)

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy the first third of biographies more than the middle. The journey to success. The various ways in which childhood plays a role in that yearning for distinction. The excitement of the first taste of glory. Middles often bore me. I generally like ends but in this case unfortunately the end was absent being written before Albee died and before one of my favorite Albee plays: The Goat.

So really enjoyed reading about 1950s, 60s NYC, Albee bursting on the scene with A Zoo Story then Who's Afraid..., his romance with Terrence McNally, and his strange childhood - being the adopted scion of a scion of a cold and distant but extremely wealthy vaudeville magnate. (Theater was not in his blood but in every bit of consciousness growing up.)

Middles are where the writer has to work harder to keep our interest and here I felt like the writing was a tad dry. A riveting story about an alcohol fueled fight with Joe Papp not withstanding. But reading about one of my heroes was all in all enjoyable and helped me understand him and his plays much more. (Psst: George and Martha are partly based on drunken conversations between Albee and his former lover William Flanagan.)

[Robert Vaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insider's look at one of our most thrilling, inventive modern voices in the theater today. Albee is the playwright who gave us classics like the one act "Zoo Story," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," "Delicate Balance," and "Three Tall Women." Author of this biography, Mel Gussow has known Albee personally since the 1960s, and the research is extensive and thorough. More than anything, Albee has influenced so many younger playwrights who still work in theater today: John Guare, Tony Kushner, John Patrick Shanley and so many more. A terrific read for anyone who is interested in plays, and in theater.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

With all due respect to Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman and William Inge, Edward Albee is the most important American playwright to emerge since Eugene O'Neill. I don't say best because "best" is too subjective a term to be applied to the arts. Albee is important because of the influence his work has had on playwrights such as Arthur Kopit, Sam Shepard, John Guare and David Mamet. Mel Gussow has produced an indelible portrait of this artist. One revels in Albee's current success - The Tony Award for "The Goat or Who is Sylvia?" and a Pulitzer Prize for "Three Tall Women." However, what Mr. Gussow's biography illustrates brilliantly is that Albee hasn't staged a "comeback." Indeed, Albee never went anywhere - it was the audience and the critics that abandoned Albee. Throughout the past forty years Albee has continued to produce masterful plays - award winning plays - "A Delicate Balance," "All Over," "Seascape" and "The Lady from Dubuque" - plays which are finally gaining the recognition and stature they deserve.

The personal story is here as well. Albee was adopted and raised by people who were emotionally aloof to the needs of a gay adolescent. The relationships with Terrence McNally and Jonathan Thomas (his companion for the past thirty years), friendships with John and Elaine Steinbeck, Carson McCullers, William Flanagan, Alan Schneider and all those leading ladies from Uta Hagen, Colleen Dewhurst, Jessica Tandy and Irene Worth to Marian Seldes, Rosemary Harris, Elaine Stritch and Maggie Smith. The story of how the Pulitzer Prize board denied him the honor for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" even after the prize jury had voted unanimously for the play. It's all here - warts and all - best of all is the happy ending.

[Michael Paller]

Mel Gussow undertook the difficult task of writing a biography of a living person, in this case, the American playwright Edward Albee. Albee cooperated by granting several interviews and opening his archives; Gussow also seemingly got good cooperation from Albee's friends and acquaintances, although it can be difficult to obtain frank, honest statements about persons still living. Gussow draws a compelling portrait of a man whom, unloved by his parents, learned to forge his own path according to his own lights, in the process becoming one of the most significant playwrights of the last half of 20th century. Gussow is less interested in the theatrical context around Albee; we don't learn a lot about what the commercial American theater was like before Albee or what his contemporaries were up to, so that readers new to the theater may not really learn about the revolution in content and style that Albee spurred. Gussow himself is also part of the story, as a critic and feature writer who frequently wrote about Albee and his work throughout their parallel careers. Gussow frequently quotes himself, and one can come away with the feeling that only he had the true measure of Albee among theater critics who worked as journalists. And one can feel the animus Gussow had towards Walter Kerr, the long-time critic on the NY Herald Tribune and later the NY Times, with whom Gussow never fails to find fault. It begins to feel personal. Yet overall, this is an accomplished, nuanced work about a playwright in whose importance Gussow deeply believed, and may well make readers believe, too.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough biography written by a friend of Albee's and published in 2001 while Albee had 15 more years to live and more plays to write. Occasionally in the last chapters the focus goes a little off Albee and his life and plays, but on the whole it's on task. The context of the new york theatrical world is given proper space.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Albee has always fascinated me and this biography did not disappoint. I'm very glad, however, that I read it *after* I attempted roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Three Tall Women (especially the latter). I'm sure much of what I learned here would have influenced my interpretations of Martha and A (and probably not for the better).

[Frank Taylor]

Light-weight autobiography of the author. Fan stuff.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mel Gussow's abilities as a journalist and his personal friendship with Edward Albee allow him to make this the definitive biography of a great American playwright. I came to read this as I prepared for attending a performance of The Goat or Who is Sylvia?. The theater company had recommended this as the best biography they had found.

Chronicling the life of someone who has become an icon of the American theater is difficult, but Mel Gussow is able to combine the personal, literary, and show business details in a dramatic narrative that does justice to Edward Albee. I was intrigued to discover that among Albee's partners was one of my other favorite playwrights, Terence McNally, but the biography highlights all of Albee's relationships and the importance of each to him and his friends. The difficulties Albee encountered as an adopted child were keen and exacerbated by parents who combined a daunting distance from their son with an attitude that was colder than most New England winters.

His precocity and early development of an inscrutable individuality did not serve him well in the several schools that he more visited than occupied in his youth and it took the combination of Greenwich Village in the fifties and some tentative literary efforts with friends including William Flanagan and McNally among others to bring him to the point of his first success, The Zoo Story. He never looked back and within what would be an amazingly short time for a dramatist of lesser genius he was conquering Broadway with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The rest of the story includes successful dramas (A Delicate Balance, Three Tall Women and others); yet there was not always the appreciation his work warranted or he deserved. Published in 1999, Gussow's biography does not include the past decade and Albee's most recent successes as he has achieved the status of America's greatest living playwright, but it provides a rich and rewarding panorama of Albee's ascent to the apex of American literature.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gussow does an excellent job of making his enigmatic subject knowable, human and in some cases noble. This informed and richly detailed bio is compulsively readable without being gossipy. The biographer takes a respectful, even-handed tone and his real-life encounters with Albee lend the book color and credibility. The author only lost me when he rehashed Albee's recurrent themes, offered his (not Albee's) theories on where a play might have come from or speculated on 'roads not taken' ("What would have happened if " etc.) In a book so effectively filled with facts, quotes, descriptions and observations, additional theorizing just seemed unnecessary. Not to the detriment of the book however. Albee's worlds -- professional and personal -- are very skillfully evoked. I've taken inspiration from his stuggles for my own "singular journey".

[Cheryl]

I enjoyed reading this book. I know Mr. Albee in passing, know his work, and this was a fascinating insight into the life behind the artist. It brings insight to his works, but at the same time Mr. Albee manages to maintain his dignity and privacy.

[Erin Buchanan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, wonderful detailed story of his life....but so much information that I couldn't get through the whole thing, just skimmed a few chapters on periods that I wasn't too interested in...

[Nancy Mcdaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

still engrossing. Just finished section on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - loved it. Can't believe it was censored (1963) in some countries and lambasted for "Language!"