Saroyan: A Biography

by Barry Gifford, Lawrence Lee

Along with Ernest Hemingway, William Saroyan—winner of a Pulitzer Prize in drama for The Time of Your Life and an Academy Award for the screenplay of The Human Comedy,—was the most well-known American writer of the 1930s and 1940s. Peabody Award-winning journalist Lawrence Lee and award-winning novelist Barry Gifford heard Saroyan's story first-hand from Carol Matthau, the wife he rejected; the son and daughter he alternately smothered and pushed away; and colleagues like Artie Shaw, Celeste Holm, and Lillian Gish. Their revelations bring new depth to Saroyan's riveting story.

Genres: Biography

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness.

He is described by Patrick Beach as being "like if John Updike had an evil twin that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and wrote funny..."He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction.

Reviews

[John L · Rating 2 out of 5]

This biography is a painful, agonizing read. William Saroyan was a deeply disturbed, egotistical, paranoid person, a violent husband and father, and a compulsive gambler who often reduced his family to poverty.
After reading his life, I lost all desire to read anything he ever wrote.