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Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog
An extraordinary book; one that almost magically makes clear how Tennessee Williams wrote; how he came to his visions of Amanda Wingfield, his Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, Alma Winemiller, Lady Torrance, and the other characters of his plays that transformed the American theater of the mid-twentieth century; a book that does, from the inside, the almost impossible—revealing the heart and soul of artistic inspiration and the unwitting collaboration between playwright and actress, playwright and director.
At a moment in the life of Tennessee Williams when he felt he had been relegated to a “lower artery of the theatrical heart,” when critics were proclaiming that his work had been overrated, he summoned to New Orleans a hopeful twenty-year-old writer, James Grissom, who had written an unsolicited letter to the great playwright asking for advice. After a long, intense conversation, Williams sent Grissom on a journey on the playwright’s behalf to find out if he, Tennessee Williams, or his work, had mattered to those who had so deeply mattered to him, those who had led him to what he called the blank page, “the pale judgment.”
Among the more than seventy giants of American theater and film Grissom sought out, chief among them the women who came to Williams out of the fog: Lillian Gish, tiny and alabaster white, with enormous, lovely, empty eyes (“When I first imagined a woman at the center of my fantasia, I . . . saw the pure and buoyant face of Lillian Gish. . . . [She] was the escort who brought me to Blanche”) . . . Maureen Stapleton, his Serafina of The Rose Tattoo, a shy, fat little girl from Troy, New York, who grew up with abandoned women and sad hopes and whose job it was to cheer everyone up, goad them into going to the movies, urge them to bake a cake and have a party. (“Tennessee and I truly loved each other,” said Stapleton, “we were bound by our love of the theater and movies and movie stars and comedy. And we were bound to each other particularly by our mothers: the way they raised us; the things they could never say . . . The dreaming nature, most of all”) . . . Jessica Tandy (“The moment I read [Portrait of a Madonna],” said Tandy, “my life began. I was, for the first time . . . unafraid to be ruthless in order to get something I wanted”) . . . Kim Stanley . . . Bette Davis . . . Katharine Hepburn . . . Jo Van Fleet . . . Rosemary Harris . . . Eva Le Gallienne (“She was a stone against which I could rub my talent and feel that it became sharper”) . . . Julie Harris . . . Geraldine Page (“A titanic talent”) . . . And the men who mattered and helped with his creations, including Elia Kazan, José Quintero, Marlon Brando, John Gielgud . . .
James Grissom’s Follies of God is a revelation, a book that moves and inspires and uncannily catches that illusive “dreaming nature.”
At a moment in the life of Tennessee Williams when he felt he had been relegated to a “lower artery of the theatrical heart,” when critics were proclaiming that his work had been overrated, he summoned to New Orleans a hopeful twenty-year-old writer, James Grissom, who had written an unsolicited letter to the great playwright asking for advice. After a long, intense conversation, Williams sent Grissom on a journey on the playwright’s behalf to find out if he, Tennessee Williams, or his work, had mattered to those who had so deeply mattered to him, those who had led him to what he called the blank page, “the pale judgment.”
Among the more than seventy giants of American theater and film Grissom sought out, chief among them the women who came to Williams out of the fog: Lillian Gish, tiny and alabaster white, with enormous, lovely, empty eyes (“When I first imagined a woman at the center of my fantasia, I . . . saw the pure and buoyant face of Lillian Gish. . . . [She] was the escort who brought me to Blanche”) . . . Maureen Stapleton, his Serafina of The Rose Tattoo, a shy, fat little girl from Troy, New York, who grew up with abandoned women and sad hopes and whose job it was to cheer everyone up, goad them into going to the movies, urge them to bake a cake and have a party. (“Tennessee and I truly loved each other,” said Stapleton, “we were bound by our love of the theater and movies and movie stars and comedy. And we were bound to each other particularly by our mothers: the way they raised us; the things they could never say . . . The dreaming nature, most of all”) . . . Jessica Tandy (“The moment I read [Portrait of a Madonna],” said Tandy, “my life began. I was, for the first time . . . unafraid to be ruthless in order to get something I wanted”) . . . Kim Stanley . . . Bette Davis . . . Katharine Hepburn . . . Jo Van Fleet . . . Rosemary Harris . . . Eva Le Gallienne (“She was a stone against which I could rub my talent and feel that it became sharper”) . . . Julie Harris . . . Geraldine Page (“A titanic talent”) . . . And the men who mattered and helped with his creations, including Elia Kazan, José Quintero, Marlon Brando, John Gielgud . . .
James Grissom’s Follies of God is a revelation, a book that moves and inspires and uncannily catches that illusive “dreaming nature.”
404 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2015
78 people are currently reading
932 people want to read
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October 29, 2022
A fascinating book about Tennessee Williams that itself could have been a play. A young boy writes a letter to a great writer asking for advice about how he could become a writer too. Instead of getting a letter in return, he is invited from his home in Baton Rouge to New Orleans to meet the writer in person--for a purpose, and not the purpose you'd think. The playwright is having a prolonged crisis of faith in himself and his work, his ability to continue working after his great plays are behind him, and wants the boy to contact the women who formed the core of this body of work, whose faces were the faces that originally embodied those fictional women, and to ask them if his work mattered.
The boy learns how Williams created, how he was accustomed to creating his work. He imagined a proscenium stage in his mind. Then a fog or smoke rolled out onto it--I'd never heard the creative matrix described as a fog before--and then a woman emerged from the fog, and began to speak. That woman changed with each play, but the book actually tells us who that original face belonged to.
I learned, for example, that his vision of Blanche DuBois was Lillian Gish, who was originally cast but was so uninterior an actress it was a disaster. The boy not only talks to Gish, but also interviews the great actress who eventually did bring Blanche duBois to the stage--Jessica Tandy. Grissom interviews Elia Kazan, and Jose Quintero, and we see that a great director does for a playwright what a great editor does for a writer. Challenges him or her. Forces him or her to defend what he or she has done. Forces you to be better than you can ever imagine being. And that a bad director or an indifferent one doesn't help clarify, but simply throws it out there as is.
The book is a multi voiced conversation with and about Williams, theater, creativity, the world of the theater in a certain time and place, and the way Williams' art made its way onto the stage. All the people who made it possible, or corrupted it, changed it, amplified it, and all the women who embodied his vision, or tried and failed.
Williams is a voluble subject, and we get his opinion of everything and everyone, and realize that he still was the writer he always was. But he didn't value it anymore, he couldn't feel it. He wanted it the way it used to be--the fog, and then the woman. If it didn't happen that way, he could still write short stories, but he didn't feel them, he didn't take pride in them--creative acts that could have sustained him in a new phase of his career instead just seemed like pale shadows of what he used to be able to do. He talks about other playwrights such as Inge (they were close but Williams was quite rivalrous), Albee, Guare, Odets...
And thus it's also--even mainly--a book about the creative act, what went into the making of these plays, exploring the matrix that is the writer himself.
But most people will read this for the interviews with his actresses. Some are Williams' very close friends and saviors (Maureen Stapleton especially), others more stringently professional (the great Geraldine Page--oh, this is the best part of the book, she was so talented that ALL the other actresses were scared of her. She was the only one of the actresses who didn't want to know what other ones Grissom had interviewed or what they'd said about her). I know I will read this section again and again.
The world of the stage is mysterious to me, as there is no record but memory. It;s so interesting to get a literary picture of Kim Stanley, Jessica Tandy, Laurette Taylor and so on...and insights into figures of the theater world, like Lee Strasberg and the Actor's Studio. Loved the Brando interview--he's so insightful--and the Katherine Hepburn... and insights into other actors whose work I'd seen but not known much about--like Jo Van Fleet, who famously played the cold, cruel brothel-owner mother in the James Dean version of East of Eden, the perfect alignment of role and personality.
I can just see the note-taking boy Grissom had been, that he was able to grab those night-long rants of Williams in New Orleans on the fly and preserve for us this man in all his brilliance and largely self-orchestrated agony. The book brings up questions about writer's block and how to continue to be an artist over time, when the applause dies down but the talent is still there. It's a caution against piling up too many "necessary rituals" before writing, because then the rituals themselves become obsessional, rather than helping the writer move into the work.
So this is more of a novelistic portrait of a writer and his collaborators and influences and creative needs, his later life heartaches and solaces, a confrontation with what is it to be an artist and then a later-life artist, and a portrait of the theater as well. Eccentric and enlivening.
"Tenn believed that writers, all artists, had several homes. There was the biological place of birth; the home in which one grew up, bore witness, fell apart. There was also the place where the 'epiphanies' began --a school, a church, perhaps a bed. Rockets were launched and an identity began to be set. There was the physical location where a writer sat each day and scribbled and hunted and pecked and dreamed and drank and cursed his way into a story or play or novel. Most importantly however, there was the emotional, invisible, self-invented place where work began -- what Tenn called his 'mental theater,' a cerebral proscenium stage upon which his characters walked and stumbled and remained locked forever in his memory, ready, he felt, to be called into action and help him again.
'I've got to get home.'"
The boy learns how Williams created, how he was accustomed to creating his work. He imagined a proscenium stage in his mind. Then a fog or smoke rolled out onto it--I'd never heard the creative matrix described as a fog before--and then a woman emerged from the fog, and began to speak. That woman changed with each play, but the book actually tells us who that original face belonged to.
I learned, for example, that his vision of Blanche DuBois was Lillian Gish, who was originally cast but was so uninterior an actress it was a disaster. The boy not only talks to Gish, but also interviews the great actress who eventually did bring Blanche duBois to the stage--Jessica Tandy. Grissom interviews Elia Kazan, and Jose Quintero, and we see that a great director does for a playwright what a great editor does for a writer. Challenges him or her. Forces him or her to defend what he or she has done. Forces you to be better than you can ever imagine being. And that a bad director or an indifferent one doesn't help clarify, but simply throws it out there as is.
The book is a multi voiced conversation with and about Williams, theater, creativity, the world of the theater in a certain time and place, and the way Williams' art made its way onto the stage. All the people who made it possible, or corrupted it, changed it, amplified it, and all the women who embodied his vision, or tried and failed.
Williams is a voluble subject, and we get his opinion of everything and everyone, and realize that he still was the writer he always was. But he didn't value it anymore, he couldn't feel it. He wanted it the way it used to be--the fog, and then the woman. If it didn't happen that way, he could still write short stories, but he didn't feel them, he didn't take pride in them--creative acts that could have sustained him in a new phase of his career instead just seemed like pale shadows of what he used to be able to do. He talks about other playwrights such as Inge (they were close but Williams was quite rivalrous), Albee, Guare, Odets...
And thus it's also--even mainly--a book about the creative act, what went into the making of these plays, exploring the matrix that is the writer himself.
But most people will read this for the interviews with his actresses. Some are Williams' very close friends and saviors (Maureen Stapleton especially), others more stringently professional (the great Geraldine Page--oh, this is the best part of the book, she was so talented that ALL the other actresses were scared of her. She was the only one of the actresses who didn't want to know what other ones Grissom had interviewed or what they'd said about her). I know I will read this section again and again.
The world of the stage is mysterious to me, as there is no record but memory. It;s so interesting to get a literary picture of Kim Stanley, Jessica Tandy, Laurette Taylor and so on...and insights into figures of the theater world, like Lee Strasberg and the Actor's Studio. Loved the Brando interview--he's so insightful--and the Katherine Hepburn... and insights into other actors whose work I'd seen but not known much about--like Jo Van Fleet, who famously played the cold, cruel brothel-owner mother in the James Dean version of East of Eden, the perfect alignment of role and personality.
I can just see the note-taking boy Grissom had been, that he was able to grab those night-long rants of Williams in New Orleans on the fly and preserve for us this man in all his brilliance and largely self-orchestrated agony. The book brings up questions about writer's block and how to continue to be an artist over time, when the applause dies down but the talent is still there. It's a caution against piling up too many "necessary rituals" before writing, because then the rituals themselves become obsessional, rather than helping the writer move into the work.
So this is more of a novelistic portrait of a writer and his collaborators and influences and creative needs, his later life heartaches and solaces, a confrontation with what is it to be an artist and then a later-life artist, and a portrait of the theater as well. Eccentric and enlivening.
"Tenn believed that writers, all artists, had several homes. There was the biological place of birth; the home in which one grew up, bore witness, fell apart. There was also the place where the 'epiphanies' began --a school, a church, perhaps a bed. Rockets were launched and an identity began to be set. There was the physical location where a writer sat each day and scribbled and hunted and pecked and dreamed and drank and cursed his way into a story or play or novel. Most importantly however, there was the emotional, invisible, self-invented place where work began -- what Tenn called his 'mental theater,' a cerebral proscenium stage upon which his characters walked and stumbled and remained locked forever in his memory, ready, he felt, to be called into action and help him again.
'I've got to get home.'"
June 6, 2023
Why doesn't author give Source-Notes?
Lillian Gish as Blanche DuBois in "Streetcar" ? Author Grissom details how he met Gish and learned from her and, earlier, from Tenn (or 10) that the playwright wrote this modern classic with Gish in mind. He quotes Kazan, "Blanche was as alien to Gish as a Martian." Gish, who didnt even like to talk about sex, claimed she had no desires or needs. (The John Lahr bio has no mention of this Gish story anywhere. Lahr mentions two "disappointed readings w Margaret Sullavan," which I'd read elsewhere, long ago.) So, where are we?
Grissom, b Baton Rouge, La, wrote a fan letter to 10 that resulted in his spending several days w the playwright in New Orleans in 1982, a year before his death. Grissom says he was 20. The two got on like honey bees, although 10 was in despair and trying to keep all bitterness at bay. They walked around the town, munched, drank, snorted some cocaine, and so on (we never know where Grissom was staying unless my eyes blurred that fact), and 10 cited nasty quotes from theatre critics who said his work was overrated -- had never mattered. He charged the author to find "witnesses," from names he'd given, who would bear witness that he did matter. "These people have mattered to me, and they keep me going." Grissom accepted the assignment, though he didnt get started until some years later.
Thus begins an original and oddly moving "story" of, most especially, the actresses in 10's life who played Blanche, Flora, Maggie, Laura, Amanda, Serafina, Alma, etc. -- all memorable "characters" who stepped out of the fog and into his imagination. The book's structure is uniquely personal and Grissom's writing is often dazzling. Unlike the Lahr bio, there's only a sniff of sex; Grissom produces a tribute to the greatest American playwright, along w a provocative glimpse at theater talents like Kazan, Brando, Lee Strasberg, William Inge and John Gielgud.
10 Williams, particularly, talks a blue streak : "It won't be easy to understand people, ever, but our lives require us to keep trying. ~ To be happy is to be forever out of time's grasp. ~ I fear never experiencing love or appreciation or affection. ~ You find yourself not by setting across new lands but by restoring yourself to your young self, eyes open, ready to receive. ~ We lie in order to live, and in time, our lives become the lie. ~ We are not created by God; our God is created by us."
10 on Marian Seldes, who initially connected Grissom to the players : She got lost in a childhood mirror. The stage is her narcotic. ~~ On Tallulah : She could upstage a crucifixion. ~~ On Kate Hepburn : She cannot enter a room quietly or make a statement that doesn't have within it a tiny but lethal explosion of truth. ~~ And the players themselves talk. Maureen Stapleton on The Method : I dont think we need to know why we do things onstage. ~~ Kazan : Lee Strasberg fed on the weakest of egos. ~~ Eva Le Gallienne : Tennessee was a great writer, but he was a flawed man. Emulate the writer, not the man.
Grissom did not use a tape recorder, he explains. His quotes, many of them running for several pages, resulted from phone calls, but most came from notes sent to him by 10 or what he scribbled down in face-to-face conversations. As he further explains. Herein a serious problem : writers use tape recorders for accuracy and ease; taking down 1000s of words in your own shorthand is fairly impossible because you oft cannot decipher what's before you. The John Lahr bio has 104 pages of Source Notes that establish who said what and where and when. James Grissom has O.
All the key witnesses in his book are dead. He tells us that he moved to NYC in 1989 and began his search to bear witness. Yet he records that Geraldine Page "smiled softly at me"... and observed, "Tennessee dreamed too much." Page died in 1987, but he later says he met her earlier on a trip to NYC. Why didn't his editor insist on dated Sources? This is an unfortunate flaw, hm, Knopf?
Lillian Gish as Blanche DuBois in "Streetcar" ? Author Grissom details how he met Gish and learned from her and, earlier, from Tenn (or 10) that the playwright wrote this modern classic with Gish in mind. He quotes Kazan, "Blanche was as alien to Gish as a Martian." Gish, who didnt even like to talk about sex, claimed she had no desires or needs. (The John Lahr bio has no mention of this Gish story anywhere. Lahr mentions two "disappointed readings w Margaret Sullavan," which I'd read elsewhere, long ago.) So, where are we?
Grissom, b Baton Rouge, La, wrote a fan letter to 10 that resulted in his spending several days w the playwright in New Orleans in 1982, a year before his death. Grissom says he was 20. The two got on like honey bees, although 10 was in despair and trying to keep all bitterness at bay. They walked around the town, munched, drank, snorted some cocaine, and so on (we never know where Grissom was staying unless my eyes blurred that fact), and 10 cited nasty quotes from theatre critics who said his work was overrated -- had never mattered. He charged the author to find "witnesses," from names he'd given, who would bear witness that he did matter. "These people have mattered to me, and they keep me going." Grissom accepted the assignment, though he didnt get started until some years later.
Thus begins an original and oddly moving "story" of, most especially, the actresses in 10's life who played Blanche, Flora, Maggie, Laura, Amanda, Serafina, Alma, etc. -- all memorable "characters" who stepped out of the fog and into his imagination. The book's structure is uniquely personal and Grissom's writing is often dazzling. Unlike the Lahr bio, there's only a sniff of sex; Grissom produces a tribute to the greatest American playwright, along w a provocative glimpse at theater talents like Kazan, Brando, Lee Strasberg, William Inge and John Gielgud.
10 Williams, particularly, talks a blue streak : "It won't be easy to understand people, ever, but our lives require us to keep trying. ~ To be happy is to be forever out of time's grasp. ~ I fear never experiencing love or appreciation or affection. ~ You find yourself not by setting across new lands but by restoring yourself to your young self, eyes open, ready to receive. ~ We lie in order to live, and in time, our lives become the lie. ~ We are not created by God; our God is created by us."
10 on Marian Seldes, who initially connected Grissom to the players : She got lost in a childhood mirror. The stage is her narcotic. ~~ On Tallulah : She could upstage a crucifixion. ~~ On Kate Hepburn : She cannot enter a room quietly or make a statement that doesn't have within it a tiny but lethal explosion of truth. ~~ And the players themselves talk. Maureen Stapleton on The Method : I dont think we need to know why we do things onstage. ~~ Kazan : Lee Strasberg fed on the weakest of egos. ~~ Eva Le Gallienne : Tennessee was a great writer, but he was a flawed man. Emulate the writer, not the man.
Grissom did not use a tape recorder, he explains. His quotes, many of them running for several pages, resulted from phone calls, but most came from notes sent to him by 10 or what he scribbled down in face-to-face conversations. As he further explains. Herein a serious problem : writers use tape recorders for accuracy and ease; taking down 1000s of words in your own shorthand is fairly impossible because you oft cannot decipher what's before you. The John Lahr bio has 104 pages of Source Notes that establish who said what and where and when. James Grissom has O.
All the key witnesses in his book are dead. He tells us that he moved to NYC in 1989 and began his search to bear witness. Yet he records that Geraldine Page "smiled softly at me"... and observed, "Tennessee dreamed too much." Page died in 1987, but he later says he met her earlier on a trip to NYC. Why didn't his editor insist on dated Sources? This is an unfortunate flaw, hm, Knopf?
April 20, 2015
I was wholly captivated by this book. I've been following the writer, James Grissom, for about three years through his blog, and I couldn't see how the book would live up to my expectations, but it did. I love the story of this kid writing to the great playwright Tennessee Williams and then being given an assignment, when what he wanted was advice--and, I think, assurance that a life in the theater was worthwhile. The insight from Williams is remarkable, but I love the chapters on Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Kim Stanley, Katharine Hepburn, Marian Seldes, and Jo Van Fleet. The conclusion of the book is devastating. I recently went to a reading of the book, and there in the audience were people who have been a part of this journey with Grissom for thirty years, and it was amazing to see it all come together. I highly recommend this book.
June 26, 2016
When I see the news reporting tragedy, I pray for more love & laughter all around.
"The world is violent and mercurial - it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love - love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love."
"The world is violent and mercurial - it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love - love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love."
February 9, 2016
Beautifully written fantasy fiction that for no logical reason has been accepted as fact. James Grissom states from the start that no record remains of his alleged five days of talks with Tennessee Williams — conveniently mere months before Williams' death — yet quotes florid poetic ramblings word for word more than 30 years later as if channelling Williams himself. ("I did not take a tape recorder," Grissom points out — conveniently and nonsensically — "because I was not a journalist ... I wrote everything down [in notebooks] long since deteriorated, their staples fallen away..." — as if he had taken notes in 1882, not 1982. Absurd.) Grissom claims to have been summoned by Williams in late 1982 after writing to the playwright, at the age of 20, with a photograph and a request for writing advice. (Grissom's IMDb bio lists his birth date as Halloween 1966 — 4 years younger than this book's claim — online author photos would suggest that both of those dates are generous fantasies. IMDb also lists several of his "alternate names," including "Algonquin Camembert" and "Siegen Lane," the latter a street in his native Baton Rouge.) Yet the tall tale Grissom spins here is nonetheless engrossing, as are his very interesting theories, research, analyses, and actor portraits (even though the vast majority of interview subjects are now deceased and their quotes as unverifiable as those of Williams). It's a beautifully written book — minus one shred of factual veracity (such as a photo of the author with any of his subjects). Fact, fiction, fantasy, or fraud — still a fascinating read, on a variety of levels.
April 28, 2015
What an exquisite and touching book this was. I think I thought it would be a biography of Williams, and it is--in a way. But it is a biography told through the eyes of those with whom he worked, whom he loved, and who offer their thoughts on this man who felt he no longer mattered. James Grissom manages to write with the innocence he must have had when he was twenty and the prose slowly builds in maturity and understanding. In addition to shedding light on the creative processes of Williams and many of the greatest actresses of our time, this is a remarkably well-written book.
June 7, 2016
Anyone who loves, reveres and is devoted to Tennessee Williams and his work must read this book. Anyone who loves, reveres and is devoted to the theatre must read this book. Anyone who loves, reveres and is devoted to stellar writing must read this book. James Grissom has given us the gift of Tennessee Williams speaking candidly, poetically and delusionaly about himself and his work--specifically the women, types of women and spectacular actresses who inspired and interpreted his work. While painting a revealing portrait of Williams in his last years, Grissom creates an intimate biography that is as revealing about the man and his work as it is about writing, the theatre and acting. Grissom also gives us cameo portraits of the actresses (Geraldine Page, Jessica Tandy, Maureen Stapleton, to name but a few) to whom Williams dispatched Grissom for revelations and insights into Williams and his work. "Follies of God" is packed with the wit, humor and tragedy of Williams in his own words, as well as revelations, dishy gossip, and an engrossing journey into a world long gone. Be sure to wear your sunglasses. You'll need to protect your eyes from the sparkling dazzle of Grissom's prose. I can't wait for his next book. I hear it's about Marlon Brando.
October 15, 2016
This is an excellent read for anyone interested in theater. James Grissom did a brilliant job in allowing us to see the real Tennessee Williams. Theater is ART, it allows us to see inside our sometimes hidden secrets or confusion about life through an insightful play. Actors attempt to take a playwrights work, this book, Tenn's work, and breath life into it on the stage for the audiences to experience a few truths. But the enlightenment for me, is how much effort, sometimes outright agony,waiting for a woman to come out of the fog , sweat, sleepless dream sharing, drugs and alcohol go into one play. Being born in 1945, I recognized many of the women in this book that influenced Tenn. In fact, one afternoon, in mid book, I took a break from reading . Turned on TCM, and there was 'A Streetcar Named Desire', Vivian Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Maldon. 1951.
I took that as a sign. I saw the movie years ago, but at my current age and this book, I saw , understood and felt so much more. Also , I was watching 'Theater Talk' which James Grissom
happened to be on 3/13/16. I wrote a note to get this book. It would be great, I think, it this
valuable read is also on CD version so we can listen...just like old radio, oui. This book
is a proud book on my shelf that I shall refer to often and is the best read of this year.
Bravo James Grissom!
I took that as a sign. I saw the movie years ago, but at my current age and this book, I saw , understood and felt so much more. Also , I was watching 'Theater Talk' which James Grissom
happened to be on 3/13/16. I wrote a note to get this book. It would be great, I think, it this
valuable read is also on CD version so we can listen...just like old radio, oui. This book
is a proud book on my shelf that I shall refer to often and is the best read of this year.
Bravo James Grissom!
April 14, 2016
This is a very interesting view of Tennessee Williams and the sources of his creative inspiration. It includes reminiscences and conversations with some of the great actresses, actors and writers of his time. This a peek behind the curtain that will inform your enjoyment of much of the stage work done in America from roughly the 40's, 50's and 60's.
January 5, 2016
Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog
by James Grissom
The book entered my awareness through a “Like” page on Facebook.
A Follies of God “Like” page was being “Liked” by some of my Facebook friends, or maybe the posts were “sponsored”, but I don’t think so. The content of the posts were intriguing quotes from Tennessee Williams, or people, primarily women, with whom he worked. These were accompanied by photos of these people.
I can’t say I have a lot of interest of fan chatter, gossip about famous people, figures of mid-20th Century theater/films, but what I was seeing in the Follies of God posts were way beyond fan stuff. They were statements about life, work, and “What’s it all about?” by people who had, at least for a season or two, ascended to the peak in their field. Of particular interest at the time were quotes from Marlon Brando. I didn’t know that much about him, other than the acting, the admirable advocation of the cause of the American Indian, and the horrible family tragedies that surrounded him in later years. I had a notion that he was an off beat, but more or less a big dumb pretty thing, who was able to exhibit emotions while acting. The Brando in the Follies of God posts was a very thoughtful, deeply philosophical man with a lot so say about life in general, our human predicament, a comrade in bohemian/rebel spirit.. So I “Liked” “Followed” and continues to enjoy these posts not really knowing what the project was all about.
I can’t say, even though I’m an actor, that I’m a big movie fan. And being essentially a displaced working class rube, “The Theater” has hardly been on my radar at all.
I had only recently developed an interest in Williams. The first encounter was at an event called Tenn 99 which marked the 99th year since his birth. In a theater in Westbeth in NYC, during an afternoon, at this free event I was exposed to readings of the full length A Rose Tattoo as well as two or three one act plays. I bit. I was later hooked by a production of In a Bar in a Tokyo Hotel. This production by Regina Bartkoff and Charles Schick, was the best Williams production I have seen and I was very moved and intellectually stimulated by this marvelous play. That night I became a Williams fan.
This year has marked the publication of two major books having to do with Williams. The first was john Lahr's biography Tennessee Williams; The Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh. While waiting for this popular book to become available from the library, and after reading Regina Bartkoff's mixed review, I decided to bide my time with Memoirs by Williams himself. Memoirs is an excellent read, very amusing. It has the feeling of hanging out with Tenn over drinks and multiple lines of coke (not that I know what that it like, but can imagine). It has lots of sex talk which old Tenn, in his 60s at the time, justifies by saying that he "came out" late in life.
Then the John Lahr arrived for me at the library. It was informative but in the end I had the feeling that Lahr chose a plot, a story line, and told it. The story in essence being that in the end, what happened to Tennessee, was that he felt guilty about exploiting his family history, the sad brutally lobotomized sister Rose, and most oddly, himself, to create his great works.
Enter James Grissiom's Follies of God.
Before getting the book, based on the posts on the Facebook "like" page, I had imagined it would be a series of quotes from the famous contemporaries of Williams all compiled by some 80 year old guy who knew them all somehow and was at last sharing it all. Frankly, that sounded a bit dull to me.
It turns out that Grissiom's experience is a big part of the book. He is a character in the book and as a young fan of Williams, contacted the old man in his final years and was assigned to the task of discovering why Williams mattered to the people he had worked with, mostly the women he admired and wished to gain insight, wisdom, from. He sets Grissiom on a 30 year journey to meet and talk to these women providing him with methods of introduction to these oft times very famous and accomplished actors. He tells Grissiom what he thinks of each which of course provides him with tantalizing bait. What performer would not want to know, in their later years, what the great playwright thought of them and their work?
Grissiom also provides us with an portrait of Williams, with little or no embellishment of psychological diagnosis. He simply reports what Williams says and does. I felt that, in comparison with Lahr's Williams, who he never met, I was getting a clear, more realistic view of the subject.
While both Lahr's and Grissiom's Tennessee is disillusioned and this is connected to the loss of writing power and the fine art, success, and stature that emerged from it. the cause of this decline, rather than Lahr's guilt at the exploitation of the family, my impression of Grissiom's Williams is more an artist lost in addiction caused by a combination of being a child seeking comfort and shelter from the stressful craziness of his family, first in huddling in his youthful bed escaping into radio dramas, maturing to create his own fantastic world to theatrical naturalism, all the whole, aiding in his escape is first alcohol and later, with the rich reward of commercial success, many other drugs that while also used to bring on The Fog from which his women characters emerged also had the debilitating side effect on Tenn, losing his own way becoming more and more a character lost to the fog himself. What I got from the book was a Tennessee Williams who not only used drugs as an escape from current or remembered stress, normal in, I would say, most addicts, but also used them as a tool to an altered consciousness space from which he wrote. This can sometimes work quite well for a time, even perhaps years, but then Mephistopheles demands his due. Lahr did not, as I recall even mention cocaine, yet Grissiom reports witnessing many trips to the loo. I'm not suggesting that drugs made the man, but clearly played a part in the unmaking.
The bulk of the book is involved with the marvelous talks with the women, the surrogate mothers and lovers off Williams. I say lovers because he so clearly was seeking women's love and acceptance confirmation that he "mattered". And there is a certain passage in the book where Williams compares women’s and man’s love. Man’s loved is judged as being a very surface matter, something that evaporated if wrinkles appeared, or if the suit was not neatly pressed. I couldn’t help but wonder if Williams was looking at himself in this harsh portrayal of man’s ability to love.
Of the woman he loved and admired, and sent James Grissiom to speak with, some are brilliant, some angry, bitter, and some, like Tenn, are also addicted to mood altering substances, but each, offers the reader a lesson in life, how to live it, and perhaps the paths to be avoided, if that is even possible, if there is really anyway to alter our paths set by where, with whom, we originate.
A couple of chapters are devoted to Tennessee's relationship with William Inge. As an Inge fan, I was fascinated by this section. Once again, one can read Lahr's book and put it down with no awareness of a long standing sexual relationship between these two major 20th Century playwrights. An omission of major proportions.
I think Follies if God is a great, enriching read, not matter one's level of interest in things theatrical.
by James Grissom
The book entered my awareness through a “Like” page on Facebook.
A Follies of God “Like” page was being “Liked” by some of my Facebook friends, or maybe the posts were “sponsored”, but I don’t think so. The content of the posts were intriguing quotes from Tennessee Williams, or people, primarily women, with whom he worked. These were accompanied by photos of these people.
I can’t say I have a lot of interest of fan chatter, gossip about famous people, figures of mid-20th Century theater/films, but what I was seeing in the Follies of God posts were way beyond fan stuff. They were statements about life, work, and “What’s it all about?” by people who had, at least for a season or two, ascended to the peak in their field. Of particular interest at the time were quotes from Marlon Brando. I didn’t know that much about him, other than the acting, the admirable advocation of the cause of the American Indian, and the horrible family tragedies that surrounded him in later years. I had a notion that he was an off beat, but more or less a big dumb pretty thing, who was able to exhibit emotions while acting. The Brando in the Follies of God posts was a very thoughtful, deeply philosophical man with a lot so say about life in general, our human predicament, a comrade in bohemian/rebel spirit.. So I “Liked” “Followed” and continues to enjoy these posts not really knowing what the project was all about.
I can’t say, even though I’m an actor, that I’m a big movie fan. And being essentially a displaced working class rube, “The Theater” has hardly been on my radar at all.
I had only recently developed an interest in Williams. The first encounter was at an event called Tenn 99 which marked the 99th year since his birth. In a theater in Westbeth in NYC, during an afternoon, at this free event I was exposed to readings of the full length A Rose Tattoo as well as two or three one act plays. I bit. I was later hooked by a production of In a Bar in a Tokyo Hotel. This production by Regina Bartkoff and Charles Schick, was the best Williams production I have seen and I was very moved and intellectually stimulated by this marvelous play. That night I became a Williams fan.
This year has marked the publication of two major books having to do with Williams. The first was john Lahr's biography Tennessee Williams; The Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh. While waiting for this popular book to become available from the library, and after reading Regina Bartkoff's mixed review, I decided to bide my time with Memoirs by Williams himself. Memoirs is an excellent read, very amusing. It has the feeling of hanging out with Tenn over drinks and multiple lines of coke (not that I know what that it like, but can imagine). It has lots of sex talk which old Tenn, in his 60s at the time, justifies by saying that he "came out" late in life.
Then the John Lahr arrived for me at the library. It was informative but in the end I had the feeling that Lahr chose a plot, a story line, and told it. The story in essence being that in the end, what happened to Tennessee, was that he felt guilty about exploiting his family history, the sad brutally lobotomized sister Rose, and most oddly, himself, to create his great works.
Enter James Grissiom's Follies of God.
Before getting the book, based on the posts on the Facebook "like" page, I had imagined it would be a series of quotes from the famous contemporaries of Williams all compiled by some 80 year old guy who knew them all somehow and was at last sharing it all. Frankly, that sounded a bit dull to me.
It turns out that Grissiom's experience is a big part of the book. He is a character in the book and as a young fan of Williams, contacted the old man in his final years and was assigned to the task of discovering why Williams mattered to the people he had worked with, mostly the women he admired and wished to gain insight, wisdom, from. He sets Grissiom on a 30 year journey to meet and talk to these women providing him with methods of introduction to these oft times very famous and accomplished actors. He tells Grissiom what he thinks of each which of course provides him with tantalizing bait. What performer would not want to know, in their later years, what the great playwright thought of them and their work?
Grissiom also provides us with an portrait of Williams, with little or no embellishment of psychological diagnosis. He simply reports what Williams says and does. I felt that, in comparison with Lahr's Williams, who he never met, I was getting a clear, more realistic view of the subject.
While both Lahr's and Grissiom's Tennessee is disillusioned and this is connected to the loss of writing power and the fine art, success, and stature that emerged from it. the cause of this decline, rather than Lahr's guilt at the exploitation of the family, my impression of Grissiom's Williams is more an artist lost in addiction caused by a combination of being a child seeking comfort and shelter from the stressful craziness of his family, first in huddling in his youthful bed escaping into radio dramas, maturing to create his own fantastic world to theatrical naturalism, all the whole, aiding in his escape is first alcohol and later, with the rich reward of commercial success, many other drugs that while also used to bring on The Fog from which his women characters emerged also had the debilitating side effect on Tenn, losing his own way becoming more and more a character lost to the fog himself. What I got from the book was a Tennessee Williams who not only used drugs as an escape from current or remembered stress, normal in, I would say, most addicts, but also used them as a tool to an altered consciousness space from which he wrote. This can sometimes work quite well for a time, even perhaps years, but then Mephistopheles demands his due. Lahr did not, as I recall even mention cocaine, yet Grissiom reports witnessing many trips to the loo. I'm not suggesting that drugs made the man, but clearly played a part in the unmaking.
The bulk of the book is involved with the marvelous talks with the women, the surrogate mothers and lovers off Williams. I say lovers because he so clearly was seeking women's love and acceptance confirmation that he "mattered". And there is a certain passage in the book where Williams compares women’s and man’s love. Man’s loved is judged as being a very surface matter, something that evaporated if wrinkles appeared, or if the suit was not neatly pressed. I couldn’t help but wonder if Williams was looking at himself in this harsh portrayal of man’s ability to love.
Of the woman he loved and admired, and sent James Grissiom to speak with, some are brilliant, some angry, bitter, and some, like Tenn, are also addicted to mood altering substances, but each, offers the reader a lesson in life, how to live it, and perhaps the paths to be avoided, if that is even possible, if there is really anyway to alter our paths set by where, with whom, we originate.
A couple of chapters are devoted to Tennessee's relationship with William Inge. As an Inge fan, I was fascinated by this section. Once again, one can read Lahr's book and put it down with no awareness of a long standing sexual relationship between these two major 20th Century playwrights. An omission of major proportions.
I think Follies if God is a great, enriching read, not matter one's level of interest in things theatrical.
March 29, 2020
A mesmerizing read that made me want to seek out the women of Tennessee's fog and revisit all of his plays. Tennessee's deep love of women, the “saints” on his rosary of the theater, in his life - some as flawed and needy as he - are such a joy to read about in his words and in theirs as author Grissom goes about his assignment of seeking them out, to ask if Tennessee Williams mattered. He did.
November 23, 2017
Interesting. I wonder about the veracity of some of the accounts...
August 5, 2021
An interesting read if you realize that it is primarily a work of fiction. Lies on lies.
July 10, 2023
One of the better books I've read this year, and a unique take on Williams in terms of the women in his life and the role(s) they played in his work.
Verified Purchase
Anyone who is involved with any branch of the arts - acting, theater, writing, performance, you name it, should hasten and acquire this splendid work. You *need* this one. You will *want* it after you've acquired it, and then some, but you *need* it.
This book entails the complete heart, soul, and being of the artistic, creative mind and sensibility. What it is to be human, and what it is to have both human frailties, flaws, and strengths. Especially as they apply to being a transmitter of those emotions, as a creator of stories, plays, and dramas, and how actors filter all that through their own personalities in their characterizations.
It is not just about Tennessee Williams; it involves several people, mostly women, great actresses whose lives and friendships "mattered" to one of the greatest playwrights this country ever produced - and he desiring to know those, and to what extent, who "mattered" to him.
Mr. Grissom is a splendid writer. He not only has a superb grasp of utilizing just the right words, but in their construction of them; page after page contain pitch-perfect, quotable passages that you just want to highlight, and memorize. Moreover, that "grasp" extends to his astute, thoughtful, and empathetic understanding of human nature.
This book is vitally important in understanding Tennessee Williams, the person he was, and why he was the way he was; and how he applied all that to his craft. Williams, here near the end of his lifetime, lays bare his complete being to Mr. Grissom, in the process documenting those last months for posterity. Now, it is not as if there isn’t enough copious documentation on Williams already; his own words and letters are widely published.
But this book provides a singular, important, fill-in-the-gaps element: a comprehensive, in-depth study of his relationships with several leading, and great actresses who were crucial in his life, whether as friends, and purveyors of several of his characters, or both. How they influenced him, and vice-versa.
The conversations with these women are prodigiously illuminating, absorbing, and quite often, deeply profound. The list of these women is a who’s-who of the theater and film world: Maureen Stapleton, Eva le Gallienne, Miriam Hopkins, Lillian Gish, Jessica Tandy, Lois Smith, Marian Seldes, Frances Sternhagen, Julie Harris, Kim Hunter, Barbara Baxley, Geraldine Page, Mildred Natwick, Jo Van Fleet, Kim Stanley, Katharine Cornell, Rosemary Harris, Katharine Hepburn; in the discussions too are Marlon Brando, Hume Cronyn, John Gielgud, Laurette Taylor, Tallulah Bankhead, José Quintero, William Inge, Elia Kazan, Luchino Visconti, Lee Strasberg, Truman Capote Ellis Raab, Stella Adler, and Irene Worth.
You feel yourself practically as a fly-on-the-wall in the rapt, fascinating discussions, and you come away with many significant insights, of Williams, the actresses themselves, as well as the universal, and personal. All the vicissitudes of human nature are laid out here, soberingly, joyfully, poignantly, and quite often, with consecrating beauty.
Personally, the subjects I enjoyed most were Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Frances Sternhagen, Julie Harris Marian Seldes, in a strange way Kim Stanley, and most especially Mildred Natwick and Katharine Hepburn. Natwick was something of a pragmatic, earthly angel, a true healing spirit. She is an absolute joy to get to know in these pages. Hepburn, fittingly near the end of the book, provides the most astonishing, unerringly right-on summaries of not just Williams, but her hard, pragmatic advice about the surest way as to an effective life-conduct is required reading. You’re reminded here of why Hepburn was so celebrated for her self alone. She is a beacon of wisdom and life sagacity.
I thank Mr. Grissom wholeheartedly for providing this masterpiece of a book.
Verified Purchase
Anyone who is involved with any branch of the arts - acting, theater, writing, performance, you name it, should hasten and acquire this splendid work. You *need* this one. You will *want* it after you've acquired it, and then some, but you *need* it.
This book entails the complete heart, soul, and being of the artistic, creative mind and sensibility. What it is to be human, and what it is to have both human frailties, flaws, and strengths. Especially as they apply to being a transmitter of those emotions, as a creator of stories, plays, and dramas, and how actors filter all that through their own personalities in their characterizations.
It is not just about Tennessee Williams; it involves several people, mostly women, great actresses whose lives and friendships "mattered" to one of the greatest playwrights this country ever produced - and he desiring to know those, and to what extent, who "mattered" to him.
Mr. Grissom is a splendid writer. He not only has a superb grasp of utilizing just the right words, but in their construction of them; page after page contain pitch-perfect, quotable passages that you just want to highlight, and memorize. Moreover, that "grasp" extends to his astute, thoughtful, and empathetic understanding of human nature.
This book is vitally important in understanding Tennessee Williams, the person he was, and why he was the way he was; and how he applied all that to his craft. Williams, here near the end of his lifetime, lays bare his complete being to Mr. Grissom, in the process documenting those last months for posterity. Now, it is not as if there isn’t enough copious documentation on Williams already; his own words and letters are widely published.
But this book provides a singular, important, fill-in-the-gaps element: a comprehensive, in-depth study of his relationships with several leading, and great actresses who were crucial in his life, whether as friends, and purveyors of several of his characters, or both. How they influenced him, and vice-versa.
The conversations with these women are prodigiously illuminating, absorbing, and quite often, deeply profound. The list of these women is a who’s-who of the theater and film world: Maureen Stapleton, Eva le Gallienne, Miriam Hopkins, Lillian Gish, Jessica Tandy, Lois Smith, Marian Seldes, Frances Sternhagen, Julie Harris, Kim Hunter, Barbara Baxley, Geraldine Page, Mildred Natwick, Jo Van Fleet, Kim Stanley, Katharine Cornell, Rosemary Harris, Katharine Hepburn; in the discussions too are Marlon Brando, Hume Cronyn, John Gielgud, Laurette Taylor, Tallulah Bankhead, José Quintero, William Inge, Elia Kazan, Luchino Visconti, Lee Strasberg, Truman Capote Ellis Raab, Stella Adler, and Irene Worth.
You feel yourself practically as a fly-on-the-wall in the rapt, fascinating discussions, and you come away with many significant insights, of Williams, the actresses themselves, as well as the universal, and personal. All the vicissitudes of human nature are laid out here, soberingly, joyfully, poignantly, and quite often, with consecrating beauty.
Personally, the subjects I enjoyed most were Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Frances Sternhagen, Julie Harris Marian Seldes, in a strange way Kim Stanley, and most especially Mildred Natwick and Katharine Hepburn. Natwick was something of a pragmatic, earthly angel, a true healing spirit. She is an absolute joy to get to know in these pages. Hepburn, fittingly near the end of the book, provides the most astonishing, unerringly right-on summaries of not just Williams, but her hard, pragmatic advice about the surest way as to an effective life-conduct is required reading. You’re reminded here of why Hepburn was so celebrated for her self alone. She is a beacon of wisdom and life sagacity.
I thank Mr. Grissom wholeheartedly for providing this masterpiece of a book.
August 23, 2017
After reading several books on Tennessee Williams including many by men who encountered him during his later, drug-crazed years, I didn't think there could possibly be another angle with which to examine this tragic figure. James Grissom's combination memoir/essay/multi-biography finds the new way into Williams' mind by interviewing the women who influenced him. In the early 198s, Grissom, then a young student wrote the legendary dramatist a fan letter. This resulted in their meeting in New Orleans and Williams charging the young man with seeking out and speaking with the ladies of the theater the great man had worked with or witnessed on stage. Grissom was to carry messages from Williams and ask their responses. The playwright was going through difficult times (that's putting it mildly) and he wanted to know if he mattered to the women who mattered to him. Decades later, Grissom has completed his task and the result is a fascinating look into the shattered Williams psyche and work methods. We learn not only about women who served as inspiration such as Lillian Gish (the model for Blanche DuBois) and Ruth Chatterton but also role models for Williams' conduct of life. There were clear-headed acolytes of the dramatic arts such as Katharine Hepburn, Marian Seldes, Lois Smith, and Frances Sternhagen. whose no-nonsense approach to living he envied. But also psychological messes and brilliant actresses such as Kim Stanley, Jo Van Fleet and Barbara Baxley. Drinking buddies and surrogate mothers like Maureen Stapleton, admired practitioners like Mildred Natwick, dramaturgical advisors such as Stella Adler and Eva LaGalliene.
I admired the examination of certain productions such as the 1973 revival of Streetcar with Rosemary Harris directed by her gay ex-husband Ellis Rabb and the two abortive, short-lived Broadway stagings of The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. I was also taken by Williams' assessment of the careers of Seldes and Smith. He told Grissom that neither of them sought the approval of the fickle public, but only wanted to do honest and vital work onstage, as a result they led much happier lives than he did. Interesting, both Seldes and Smith came into their own late in their long careers, receiving awards, praise, and rewarding roles after toiling in the vineyards for decades.
Grissom has received notoriety lately for praising Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign because she helped him with his insurance when she was a NY Senator. As result the fascistic GOP in Congress has investigated him on suspicion that Clinton paid him for his good words on national TV. Perhaps there is another book there.
I admired the examination of certain productions such as the 1973 revival of Streetcar with Rosemary Harris directed by her gay ex-husband Ellis Rabb and the two abortive, short-lived Broadway stagings of The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. I was also taken by Williams' assessment of the careers of Seldes and Smith. He told Grissom that neither of them sought the approval of the fickle public, but only wanted to do honest and vital work onstage, as a result they led much happier lives than he did. Interesting, both Seldes and Smith came into their own late in their long careers, receiving awards, praise, and rewarding roles after toiling in the vineyards for decades.
Grissom has received notoriety lately for praising Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign because she helped him with his insurance when she was a NY Senator. As result the fascistic GOP in Congress has investigated him on suspicion that Clinton paid him for his good words on national TV. Perhaps there is another book there.
June 11, 2023
Thanks to my dear friend Barbara, who gifted this lovely book to me. I don’t know everything Tennessee Williams wrote. I know a couple of plays and honestly a couple of movies the best. And I read that beautiful historical fiction novel about his lover, Frank Merlo called Leading Men.
This book of non-fiction follows the author when he was a 20-year-old boy meeting Tennessee Williams and traveling all over, interviewing people that Tennessee respected and admired who were in his life at some point, asking them what he meant to them. It’s a really remarkable collection of stories, so thrilled it’s been captured by the author and sent out into the universe for Tenn fans.
This book of non-fiction follows the author when he was a 20-year-old boy meeting Tennessee Williams and traveling all over, interviewing people that Tennessee respected and admired who were in his life at some point, asking them what he meant to them. It’s a really remarkable collection of stories, so thrilled it’s been captured by the author and sent out into the universe for Tenn fans.
March 25, 2018
Grissom does a masterful job of capturing both the poetic and maddening qualities of Tennessee Williams. The conceit of the book is intriguing: Grissom writes a fan letter to Williams and asks for advice about writing. The two meet, and Williams bares his emotional and literary souls to the young writer. The books focuses on the many women who inspired and haunted Williams. Grissom shares Williams' views of these women as well as impressions of his own after having met the disparate cast of characters in Williams' life drama. A particularly haunting image for me is that of the rosary and the way Williams appropriates it to manage his memories. The ending is also poignant. My one criticism is that I found it a tad redundant and a trifle too long, like a buffet with too much rich food. But for those who treasure Tennessee Williams, this is a must read.
September 15, 2015
Excelent book!
I had a feeling I would enjoy it. I grew up with images of Tennessee Williams plays through the film adaptations. "A Streetcar named Desire", "Suddenly Last Summer", "Summer and Smoke", "Cat on a Hot tin roof", "Sweet Bird of Youth" were landmarks as well as the acting of Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Geraldine Page. What I found most interesting was that the book was mostly about the plays, the theater and the actresses inspiring the author, some of which acted the parts in theater productions, rather than the movies.
It is irrelevant if it is really the voice of Tenessee in the book. The important thing is that it captures a time and reality that is becoming distant. There is poetry in this book and a feeling of nostalgia that impresses itself on the reader.
And there are those other voices from actreses like Lillian Gish or Maureen Stapleton or Katherine Hepburn whose personalities are so different yet matching their public images.
I believe James Grissom wrote a different book that could become easily a reference in the memoir genre
I had a feeling I would enjoy it. I grew up with images of Tennessee Williams plays through the film adaptations. "A Streetcar named Desire", "Suddenly Last Summer", "Summer and Smoke", "Cat on a Hot tin roof", "Sweet Bird of Youth" were landmarks as well as the acting of Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Geraldine Page. What I found most interesting was that the book was mostly about the plays, the theater and the actresses inspiring the author, some of which acted the parts in theater productions, rather than the movies.
It is irrelevant if it is really the voice of Tenessee in the book. The important thing is that it captures a time and reality that is becoming distant. There is poetry in this book and a feeling of nostalgia that impresses itself on the reader.
And there are those other voices from actreses like Lillian Gish or Maureen Stapleton or Katherine Hepburn whose personalities are so different yet matching their public images.
I believe James Grissom wrote a different book that could become easily a reference in the memoir genre
August 7, 2017
When the author was in college, he met Tennessee Williams, who was in the waning career of his life. Williams, who had a lot of self doubt at the time, asks the author to locate and interview a lot of his old leading ladies and find out what they thought of him. The author does that over the next 20 years and then writes this book about what they told him.
June 30, 2015
A travel memoir and mini bios all in one. You get a sense of the real Tennessee here -- the good, the bad and the ugly. Completely authentic and compelling. Really great read for TW fans and American theater history buffs.
May 3, 2015
Fascinating!inspires me to seek out the work of many of these influential actresses.
January 5, 2016
Excellent addition to other biographies of Mr. Williams.
April 4, 2023
Highly recommend this book, but be aware, it is unlike any other. Take it in tiny sips. The sympathy and compassion and realisation behind these conversations can overwhelm. We see and hear so little of it these days. It's refreshing but heavy with emotion and meaning. You need to think about each sentence and what each of these women (or Tennessee) is really trying to say and convey.
You see Tennessee wanted to know if he mattered to all these women that had meant so much to him. While working with them, while being inspired by them. The author James Grissom was tasked to talk to each of them.
Therefore, it's not just a biography, or autobiography, the master playwright we call Tennessee Williams, who wrote Streetcar and Glass Menagerie, shares the pages with Kathryn Hepburn, Geraldine Page, Vivien Leigh, Jessica Tandy, Maureen Stapleton, Anna Magnani, and so many more. The kind of women that get your attention and share a wide range of emotions. I think Gore Vidal used to wonder why Tennessee was attracted to what he called, 'monster women'. Well, there could be something to that, especially with the Roma di Romana Agnelli. There is little joy, a little happiness but more importantly, but we get to explore the artist's life. And it's not really about movies, it's mostly about the theater and why this was Tennessee's ideal literary playground.
It's also about why Gore Vidal called Tennessee Williams the Glorious Bird. "The bird is flight, poetry, life. The bird is time, death." And we get everything in between in this book.
The Follies of God gives some insight into Tennessee's relationships with men, however, it's the women who inspired his finest writing. They spoke to him as they came out of the fog -- in the same way we are introduced to Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar named Desire. Vivien Leigh suddenly appears out of the mist and off we go...to places we may not want to go.
This book is taking a long time to read. Tiny sips. They need to linger. Each time Tennessee speaks, each time Hepburn or Lillian Gish or Geraldine Page expresses an opinion, a memory of Tennessee, a difficult moment or crisis, they each carry the kind of intensity that takes time to understand. I am relishing every bit...
You see Tennessee wanted to know if he mattered to all these women that had meant so much to him. While working with them, while being inspired by them. The author James Grissom was tasked to talk to each of them.
Therefore, it's not just a biography, or autobiography, the master playwright we call Tennessee Williams, who wrote Streetcar and Glass Menagerie, shares the pages with Kathryn Hepburn, Geraldine Page, Vivien Leigh, Jessica Tandy, Maureen Stapleton, Anna Magnani, and so many more. The kind of women that get your attention and share a wide range of emotions. I think Gore Vidal used to wonder why Tennessee was attracted to what he called, 'monster women'. Well, there could be something to that, especially with the Roma di Romana Agnelli. There is little joy, a little happiness but more importantly, but we get to explore the artist's life. And it's not really about movies, it's mostly about the theater and why this was Tennessee's ideal literary playground.
It's also about why Gore Vidal called Tennessee Williams the Glorious Bird. "The bird is flight, poetry, life. The bird is time, death." And we get everything in between in this book.
The Follies of God gives some insight into Tennessee's relationships with men, however, it's the women who inspired his finest writing. They spoke to him as they came out of the fog -- in the same way we are introduced to Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar named Desire. Vivien Leigh suddenly appears out of the mist and off we go...to places we may not want to go.
This book is taking a long time to read. Tiny sips. They need to linger. Each time Tennessee speaks, each time Hepburn or Lillian Gish or Geraldine Page expresses an opinion, a memory of Tennessee, a difficult moment or crisis, they each carry the kind of intensity that takes time to understand. I am relishing every bit...
October 18, 2018
A friend of mine had tried reading a different bio of Tennessee Williams, and he told me he had to put it down because he said it just pounded away at self-indulgence and Tennessee's apparent joy at wallowing in his own misery. I was wary of reading Follies of God because I feared encountering the same phenomenon. What I found, however, was something quite different and unexpected. This bio is shaped by the writer's narrative of his experience with Williams and his meeting with most of Tennessee's "women of the fog" - an array of women of whom Tennessee was in awe, and most of whom appeared in his plays or movie adaptations of his plays. Williams spoke often of a fog that would rise and surround him when he was at his most creative, a fog out of which would appear his timeless characters, the great preponderance of them women. Later in his life, he befriended the author and asked him to go visit many of these accomplished actresses, some of whom had been close friends of his at times in his life, and ask them what they thought of Tennessee -- if he mattered to them. The author did this, but also brought to these women the reminiscenses Williams had stated about them. Most of these women were astounded that Williams revered them to the extent he did, and most of them offered their candid thoughts on the man and his genius. The book, written after the death of Williams, is an incredibly insightful account of the theater "back in the day," of a host of superb stage and screen legends, and most importantly, a view into facets of the monumental talents and trials of Tennessee Williams. I didn't want the book to end.
May 5, 2020
Follies of God is a book that came a long at just the right time for me. I had been thinking about Tennessee Williams for a while and had just read one of his plays. He has long been a figure that has fascinated me, both the man and his work.
I was watching YouTube videos one evening and came across an interview with a young man who told a story about meeting Tennessee Williams. It seems he got a call one morning and his mother woke him and said there was a man on the phone who says his name is Tennessee Williams. The young man realized that it must be him because he had written him a letter asking for advice on how to be a writer. He took the call. As the young man related the story, Tennessee asked him to come to have lunch with him. Where are you, he asked? I am in New Orleans, Tennessee answered. But I’m, in Baton Rouge. Well, you better hurry. So, the next day James Grissom drove to New Orleans to meet Tennessee Williams for lunch and thus began the amazing story of how this book came about. Well, I was hooked. I ordered the book that night on Amazon and it arrived very shortly thereafter.
James met with Tennessee Williams and was given a mission. To find the women that had meant so much to him, the women who appeared in his plays and movies, and some of whom were his muses and characters he modeled his characters on or wrote for. He wanted to know if he mattered to them. He called these women, The Follies of God. The characters he created for the stage he called, The Women of the Fog. Tennessee described his writing process as one of creating a mental theater in his mind. The fog rolls in across the boards and a female emerges. “I have been very lucky. I am a multi-souled man, because I have offered my soul to so many women, and they have filled it, repaired it, sent it back to me for use.”
This book is the story of that mission and how it came to be. It also gives us deep insight into the mind of one of the most creative geniuses of the American theater. Tennessee Williams needed a witness and young James Grissom was who he chose.
“Good Lord, can I get a witness? Here is the importance of bearing witness. We do not grow alone; talents do not prosper in a hothouse of ambition and neglect and hungry anger. Love does not arrive by horseback or prayer or good intentions. We need the eyes, the arms, and the witness of others to grow, to know that we have existed, that we have mattered, that we have made our mark. And each of us has a distinct mark that colors our surroundings, that flavors the recipe of every experience in which we find ourselves; but we remain blind, without identity until someone witnesses us.”
During the course of fulfilling his mission James Grissom talked to some of the most important figures on the American Theater scene: Lillian Gish, Maureen Stapleton, Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, John Gielgud, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, Geraldine Page, and Katherine Hepburn, to name a few. This book is the fascinating account of his interviewing these witnesses and the sometime startling things they had to day. And yes, Tennessee did matter, and he still does.
July 23, 2023
I felt compelled to join Goodreads to refute a recent article that tries--but fails--to disprove the work James Grissom has done, both on this book and on his various posts on social media.
My husband--also a writer--and I met James Grissom nearly twenty years ago, and we met him with many of the people he interviewed, and we acted, happily, as proofreaders and fact-checkers for his book before he submitted it to any agents.
We saw handwritten notes, typewritten notes, floppy disks, letters, emails, recordings. Some of the people interviewed were friends or acquaintances of ours, and we wrote and spoke with them.
Through the years I have bumped into people who had "suspicions" about the book, which I always thought I was putting to rest, but I think that envy and the inability to believe that an unknown person, working alone for so long, could come into contact with these incredible subjects.
"Follies of God" is bearing witness to Tennessee Williams in a particular time in his life. The subjects were asked questions created by Tennessee Williams. It is not a biography, but stubbornly, consistently, some keep holding James Grissom and "Follies of God" to the standards of biography.
This book and its writer are legitimate.
My husband--also a writer--and I met James Grissom nearly twenty years ago, and we met him with many of the people he interviewed, and we acted, happily, as proofreaders and fact-checkers for his book before he submitted it to any agents.
We saw handwritten notes, typewritten notes, floppy disks, letters, emails, recordings. Some of the people interviewed were friends or acquaintances of ours, and we wrote and spoke with them.
Through the years I have bumped into people who had "suspicions" about the book, which I always thought I was putting to rest, but I think that envy and the inability to believe that an unknown person, working alone for so long, could come into contact with these incredible subjects.
"Follies of God" is bearing witness to Tennessee Williams in a particular time in his life. The subjects were asked questions created by Tennessee Williams. It is not a biography, but stubbornly, consistently, some keep holding James Grissom and "Follies of God" to the standards of biography.
This book and its writer are legitimate.
September 24, 2023
This is an exquisitely written and felt book. A memoir, and an assignment to a playwright who needed affirmation. Grissom spent a couple of decades tracking down those people Tennessee Williams told him to study because they had mattered to him, and they forced him to try to matter to others. Grissom asked each of his subjects the same questions, and the results are moving and surprising.
While this is not a biography, and it does not have the in-depth study of Williams' life and work, it is far more personal in discerning just who this playwright was at this time in his life. Williams was always a performer in his interviews (I particularly like the character he presented to Rex Reed for Esquire in the early 1970s). Meeting Grissom, a young college student, Williams presented himself as starting over as well, staring a new "course," and crafted a means by which female characters might once again appear to him.
Follies of God is a book you can easily read through front to back, but it is a book you will return to over and over, opening to any page and finding beautifully written insights from both the playwright, his favorite people, and the author.
While this is not a biography, and it does not have the in-depth study of Williams' life and work, it is far more personal in discerning just who this playwright was at this time in his life. Williams was always a performer in his interviews (I particularly like the character he presented to Rex Reed for Esquire in the early 1970s). Meeting Grissom, a young college student, Williams presented himself as starting over as well, staring a new "course," and crafted a means by which female characters might once again appear to him.
Follies of God is a book you can easily read through front to back, but it is a book you will return to over and over, opening to any page and finding beautifully written insights from both the playwright, his favorite people, and the author.
May 15, 2020
A friend gave me this book and I loved talking about each chapter - each actress that Tennessee Williams worked with or knew - what a novel approach in writing about someone by writing about the women. But toward the end - especially with the interview with Katharine Hepburn - I felt somehow duped. I've interviewed people and always had a tape recorder. Grissom says he used none. So was this all creative nonfiction? Yet, I'm glad I read it because it made me explore each actress on Google and watch some of their performances on YouTube, especially Kim Stanley in "The Traveling Lady." Then again, wait, what about Elizabeth Taylor? Ava Gardner? They are not even mentioned. So I will leave it at this, it's the author's view, and for that, worth reading. And for Williams' random notes on the women - brilliant, like Hepburn viewing life simply, like a bar of soap - one bar for skin, hair, teeth - like her father. Images and words of Tennessee Williams, worth reading.
July 19, 2023
I was employed at Alfred A. Knopf when this book was acquired early in 2006. "Follies of God" arrived with a great deal of supporting material, and I was tasked with checking in with people who had witnessed Mr. Grissom interviewing subjects in the book--many of whom were still living at the time. In addition, we had supporting documents from children and associates of many of the subjects, and I'm happy to see that some of these are now showing up online after a scurrilous article that tried but failed to state that "Follies of God" is a fabrication. Knopf did all of the research required to satisfactorily prove that Mr. Grissom met with and wrote honestly about his subjects. Both Marian Seldes and Maureen Stapleton verified that Tennessee Williams had called them in 1982 to let them know that he had met with Mr. Grissom and he would be coming to them soon with an assignment he had given to him.
August 19, 2023
Reading at mo......
'Follies Of God - Tennessee Williams And The Women Of The Fog'.......
......It is considered to be a 'bible' for artists, theatregoers, actors and performers of most genres, and all transcribed by the author (Grissom) through TW (Tennessee Williams.) But I feel it is more like a medium talking to their audiences through ghosts, than Grissom actually sitting down with TW and having a long old chat with him. And then, on numerous occasions, being sent out, like an errand-boy to 'catch up' with all those that TW admired. The fact that Grissom even met TW is debatable. But whatever the truth, it does not (IMO) matter, because this book is beautifully written with eye-catching moments throughout, and does make people see their idols, and those they are not so bothered about, under a much warmer, yet revered light, despite how incredulous it may all seem.
DM x
'Follies Of God - Tennessee Williams And The Women Of The Fog'.......
......It is considered to be a 'bible' for artists, theatregoers, actors and performers of most genres, and all transcribed by the author (Grissom) through TW (Tennessee Williams.) But I feel it is more like a medium talking to their audiences through ghosts, than Grissom actually sitting down with TW and having a long old chat with him. And then, on numerous occasions, being sent out, like an errand-boy to 'catch up' with all those that TW admired. The fact that Grissom even met TW is debatable. But whatever the truth, it does not (IMO) matter, because this book is beautifully written with eye-catching moments throughout, and does make people see their idols, and those they are not so bothered about, under a much warmer, yet revered light, despite how incredulous it may all seem.
DM x
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