What do you think?
Rate this book
Book of Days
Acclaimed by Frank Rich as "a writer who illuminates the deepest dramas of American life with poetry and compassion," Lanford Wilson is one of the most esteemed contemporary American playwrights of our time. Nowhere is this more evident than in his latest play, Book of Days, which has won the Best Play Award from the American Theater Critics Association. Book of Days is set in a small town dominated by a cheese plant, a fundamentalist church, and a community theater. When the owner of the cheese plant dies mysteriously in a hunting accident, Ruth, his bookkeeper, suspects murder. Cast as Joan of Arc in a local production of George Bernard Shaw's St. Joan, Ruth takes on the attributes of her fictional character and launches into a one-woman campaign to see justice done. In Book of Days, Lanford Wilson uses note-perfect language to create characters who are remarkable both for their comic turns and for their enormous depth. "Mr. Wilson's cosmic consciousness, intense moral concern, sense of human redemption and romantic effusion have climbed to a new peak." -- Alvin Klein, The New York Times; "A significant addition to the Lanford Wilson canon . . . his best work since Fifth of July . . . Book of Days manages to combine Wilson's signature character-based whimsy with an atypically strong narrative book and politically charged underpinnings." -- Chris Jones, Variety; "Book of Days is lively storytelling by one of our best playwrights." -- Lawrence DeVine, Detroit Free Press.
82 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
4 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
About the author
Lanford Wilson
52 books26 followersLanford Wilson was an American playwright, considered one of the founders of the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 3, 2008
Lanford Wilson is a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright probably best known for his "Tally" trilogy. This play is a bit of a departure from his normal plot devices, but his characters are as strong as ever and his command of language is really striking. Book Of Days features the denizens of a small American town with more churches than bars, where most of the industry and jobs center around the large cheese factory run by the town's largest benefactor. When the benefactor is killed in a hunting accident, his secretary Ruth is convinced that something more sinister has happened. Her struggle to uncover the truth meets with resistance from the entire town - will it bring a killer to light or prove to be Ruth's undoing? Another interesting feature is a play-within-the-play, as the townsfolk cast, rehearse and stage Shaw's "Saint Joan" with Ruth as the title character.
I admit, I didn't pluck this play out of the library and read it on a whim, the way I do most books - I auditioned for a local production of the show and I always prefer to read the entire script prior to auditioning so that I can contextualize the cold readings.
As an aside, I did get cast(!) and will be performing this in late May 2008!
I admit, I didn't pluck this play out of the library and read it on a whim, the way I do most books - I auditioned for a local production of the show and I always prefer to read the entire script prior to auditioning so that I can contextualize the cold readings.
As an aside, I did get cast(!) and will be performing this in late May 2008!
September 27, 2014
Lanford Wilson is one of my favorite playwrights. Book of Days, while full of bright & brilliant spots, is a hodge-podge. It's often described as a modern "Our Town," and the description makes sense.
There are elements in this script that just never get the attention they deserve. The "play within the play" surfaces, but never explains itself. There are several really brilliant characters who walk through this small town, but there are also characters that become caricatures.
All in all, it's a decent script, filled with Wilson's usual brilliance, but it feels unfinished, and certainly unedited.
There are elements in this script that just never get the attention they deserve. The "play within the play" surfaces, but never explains itself. There are several really brilliant characters who walk through this small town, but there are also characters that become caricatures.
All in all, it's a decent script, filled with Wilson's usual brilliance, but it feels unfinished, and certainly unedited.
July 19, 2015
I love Lanford Wilson and his use of the ensemble in his plays. The characters were unique and multi-faceted and his dialogue enriched their believability. The end was a bit predictable but that may be because I'm used to reading Wilson and was looking for the twist. Not appropriate for high schoolers unfortunately.
November 10, 2010
Just auditioned for this play with Bad Habit Productions. A fascinating script, a little like a cross between Talley's Folley and Rimers of Eldritch.
June 23, 2011
Murder mystery in small-town Missouri, near Springfield, with George Bernard Shaw's Joan of Arc as its backbone. Heck, it even mentions Kraft Cheese. I'd love to see it done.
November 18, 2011
I was able to understand it so much better after I was in the staged show.
July 28, 2013
I got to be in on the casting of the first production of Book of Days.
I was blown away with Lanford's script.
But I think the more he worked on it the more watered down it became.
I was blown away with Lanford's script.
But I think the more he worked on it the more watered down it became.
October 31, 2022
Book of Days is about a young woman living in a small town in the American Midwest who discovers that a terrible crime has been committed. Gradually, she comes to understand something much more disturbing and insidious, that the powerful people in this town are in denial or engaged in a cover-up or both, and that the criminal will never be punished. Wilson juxtaposes with this story another one, in which this same young woman is playing the title role in a community theater production of Saint Joan; as Joan railed against the corrupt judges who had already decided her fate even before she appeared at her trial, so too does Ruth Hoch search vainly and increasingly desperately for an honest ear to hear her testimony.
Wilson wrote Book of Days in 1998-99, and while I recognize that the willful ignorance by powerful institutions of things like truth and justice is nothing new, this play nevertheless feels oddly resonant in our time. Book of Days is on one level a scary cautionary tale about the ways that apathy and complacency give us the society we deserve.
As Book of Days' first act leisurely unfolds, we meet a passel of idiosyncratic but sympathetic characters: Ruth, actress by night and bookkeeper by day, at the cheese factory run by the richest man in town, Walt Bates; her husband, Len, is the manager there, and is working hard to convince Walt to let him develop and market high-quality cheese, converting the business from a pre-processing plant for food conglomerates like Kraft to a bona fide manufacturer of a product Walt and Len can be proud of. Walt's wife, Sharon, lives for her husband and the Church; their son, James, good-looking, popular, and lazy, has finally passed the Bar Exam and is about to run for local political office. Though James's pretty wife, LouAnn, used to be a cheerleader, he is still on the prowl, as we discover when he makes a pass at Ginger Reed, the assistant director of the Saint Joan production that Ruth is starring in. Ginger's boss on the show is Boyd Middleton, a Tony-nominated director from the Coast whose career seems to have slumped. Other characters: Len's mother, former hippie-turned-college dean Martha, bright and still idealistic in spite of everything; Bobby Groves, the decent, well-liked fundamentalist preacher at the town's church; Conroy Atkins, the town's affable Sheriff; and Earl Hill, another employee at Walt's factory, the wild card--a man with a dark side, who is obviously jealous of Len's success.
It is Earl who finds the dead body that sets in motion the murder mystery that, briefly, Book of Days turns into. But by Act Two, the rug has been pulled completely out from under us, as Ruth's quest for truth and justice--for their own sake, mind you--collides with the needs and desires of the town's biggest stakeholders. What seemed simple at first becomes tangled in a chain of momentous events that some would call conspiracy and others would call the righteous preservation of the status quo. An atmosphere of rumor, threat, and betrayal descends upon the town. Some are accused and some are forgiven; some prevail and some are driven away. Ruth doesn't burn at the stake--we live in a civilized world, thank you very much. But Wilson delivers an ending that, depending upon your views about certain political and religious and social issues, has the capacity to inflame and/or to enrage.
Wilson wrote Book of Days in 1998-99, and while I recognize that the willful ignorance by powerful institutions of things like truth and justice is nothing new, this play nevertheless feels oddly resonant in our time. Book of Days is on one level a scary cautionary tale about the ways that apathy and complacency give us the society we deserve.
As Book of Days' first act leisurely unfolds, we meet a passel of idiosyncratic but sympathetic characters: Ruth, actress by night and bookkeeper by day, at the cheese factory run by the richest man in town, Walt Bates; her husband, Len, is the manager there, and is working hard to convince Walt to let him develop and market high-quality cheese, converting the business from a pre-processing plant for food conglomerates like Kraft to a bona fide manufacturer of a product Walt and Len can be proud of. Walt's wife, Sharon, lives for her husband and the Church; their son, James, good-looking, popular, and lazy, has finally passed the Bar Exam and is about to run for local political office. Though James's pretty wife, LouAnn, used to be a cheerleader, he is still on the prowl, as we discover when he makes a pass at Ginger Reed, the assistant director of the Saint Joan production that Ruth is starring in. Ginger's boss on the show is Boyd Middleton, a Tony-nominated director from the Coast whose career seems to have slumped. Other characters: Len's mother, former hippie-turned-college dean Martha, bright and still idealistic in spite of everything; Bobby Groves, the decent, well-liked fundamentalist preacher at the town's church; Conroy Atkins, the town's affable Sheriff; and Earl Hill, another employee at Walt's factory, the wild card--a man with a dark side, who is obviously jealous of Len's success.
It is Earl who finds the dead body that sets in motion the murder mystery that, briefly, Book of Days turns into. But by Act Two, the rug has been pulled completely out from under us, as Ruth's quest for truth and justice--for their own sake, mind you--collides with the needs and desires of the town's biggest stakeholders. What seemed simple at first becomes tangled in a chain of momentous events that some would call conspiracy and others would call the righteous preservation of the status quo. An atmosphere of rumor, threat, and betrayal descends upon the town. Some are accused and some are forgiven; some prevail and some are driven away. Ruth doesn't burn at the stake--we live in a civilized world, thank you very much. But Wilson delivers an ending that, depending upon your views about certain political and religious and social issues, has the capacity to inflame and/or to enrage.
December 29, 2024
A really intriguing interweaving of a suspicious death, a community theatre production, a cheese factory, and Joan of Arc. A common thread running through it all is the infuriating constant of women not being believed, and Wilson captures this theme and small town politics well. The way he structured the overlapping conversations and fluid sense of time took some getting used to, especially with this many characters, but could be interesting to see staged. The ending
February 10, 2018
Very compelling and interesting, I found it hard to stop reading. The various themes of the play are just as relevant today as they were when it was first written and performed. I enjoyed the various characters and plots and sub-plots. If this play is ever being performed anywhere near me I’d pay as much as I would to see Hamilton. This is by far one of the best plays I have ever read and is a close second to my all-time favorite, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
December 14, 2021
I couldn't put it down. I lost a lot of sleep reading this. I read it over and over and still read it. Lanford Wilson is my great uncle. My grandpa's brother. I never met him but I know I get my writing skills and passion for writing and reading plays and books is through blood.
June 25, 2018
Extremely powerful look at how we handle our mortality.
February 28, 2021
Reading theatre is obviously not the intended form of consumption, but this play had a depressing ending nonetheless.
July 7, 2016
One hundred percent bias admit first, I was cast as the lead in this and knowing I was going to get to delve into this world for several weeks definitely colored my view as I read, I'm sure.
But there is something so fascinating to the story. First you have the parallels to Joan of Arc, all set in a small Midwestern ish - southern ish town. (I'm never sure if Missouri is Midwest or south or both or neither.) a one woman crusade to give voice to the ideas she has about a certain incident.
The incident itself, stemming from what? And who is actually behind it? Such questions give it an air of who dun it, because even amongst my cast there is still doubt over whether it was one person or if that was a cover up job the entire time. And if you are the mastermind behind the whole plot, your level of responsibility is a lot higher, is it not?
At times, it might feel like there is a lot going on. But it does all wrap up together. The family values. The show happening sort of within a show. The hypocrisy of the church. The historical parallels.
Although I've now sat with it for many more weeks than one simple reading. The first time around, I felt compelled to start over, that I had missed some smaller details, and indeed the more I find myself combing through it, the more I find. If someone is performing it near you, I suggest attending.
But there is something so fascinating to the story. First you have the parallels to Joan of Arc, all set in a small Midwestern ish - southern ish town. (I'm never sure if Missouri is Midwest or south or both or neither.) a one woman crusade to give voice to the ideas she has about a certain incident.
The incident itself, stemming from what? And who is actually behind it? Such questions give it an air of who dun it, because even amongst my cast there is still doubt over whether it was one person or if that was a cover up job the entire time. And if you are the mastermind behind the whole plot, your level of responsibility is a lot higher, is it not?
At times, it might feel like there is a lot going on. But it does all wrap up together. The family values. The show happening sort of within a show. The hypocrisy of the church. The historical parallels.
Although I've now sat with it for many more weeks than one simple reading. The first time around, I felt compelled to start over, that I had missed some smaller details, and indeed the more I find myself combing through it, the more I find. If someone is performing it near you, I suggest attending.
March 25, 2008
i LOVE this play. it's like "our town" for those who think "our town" is corny and old-fashioned. several characters made me laugh out loud while i was reading it.
November 18, 2011
I found this play quite confusing! Maybe it would be different staged.
November 18, 2016
Zero intrigue with a predictable ending. Found the Joan of Arc storyline unrelated to the murder-for-money plot. Some characters strong others not compelling enough to care about.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews