Finale: Late Conversations with Stephen Sondheim – The Intimate Portrait of a Composer-Lyricist Revealing His Creative Process

by D.T. Max

A New Yorker writer's illuminating and deeply personal collection of interviews with the late Stephen Sondheim, conducted in the last years of the artist's life--conversations that reveal the legendary composer-lyricist as he was rarely seen in public.

In February 2022, The New Yorker published an exclusive online issue which featured excerpts from interviews longtime staff writer D. T. Max conducted with Stephen Sondheim over the last years of his life. Max was working on a major New Yorker profile timed to the eventual premiere of the new musical Sondheim was writing. The article generated an astonishing response from readers who praised it as one of--if not the best--interviews with Sondheim ever produced; that Max had elicited a candor and vulnerability in the celebrated artist little shown before.

Now, Max brings together those unedited conversations in this commemorative collection. This book reveals this cultural icon--a star who shunned the spotlight--at his most relaxed, thoughtful, sardonic, and engaging, as he talks about his work, music, movies, family, New York City, aging, the creative process, and much more. Throughout, Max sets the scenes of the interviews, shares his impressions of Sondheim during each session, and explains how their unusual relationship evolved over the course of their "pas de deux."

This is a beautiful, surprising, and indelible portrait of an artist in his twilight, offering remarkable insight into the mind and heart of a genius whose work has defined and indelibly influenced modern American musical theater and popular culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Theatre, Music, Musicals, Biography Memoir

240 pages, Hardcover

First published November 22, 2022

About the author

D.T. Max is a staff writer for the New Yorker. He lives outside of New York with his wife, two teenaged children and a rescued pomeranian-cocker named Nemo. He is the author of The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery (Random House). His biography Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (Viking), was a New York Times bestseller. His latest book, Finale: Late Conversations with Stephen Sondheim was published in November 2022 by Harper.

Reviews

[Victoria Weinstein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oy, this book.
We and Sondheim deserved so much better than this self-indulgent piece that was far more a stultifying slog through the interviewer's fan boy feelings about the process of interviewing Sondheim than it was about the genius himself.

When I found out on page 25 that Max HAD TO BE TOLD BY SONDHEIM HIMSELF that he had written two books about his own work (Finishing the Hat and Look Ma, I Made a Hat) I groaned. Are you joking me? Are you KIDDING? You have the temerity to waste Stephen Sondheim's time, and ours, with your presumption that you can write an interesting profile while being deficient in basic, universally-available Sondheimiana?

Ugh, this book. Paragraphs and paragraphs of Max's interior struggle with how his "relationship" with SS was proceeding: tedious passages that should have been worked out with his best friends or therapists. Max and his editors seem not to understand that we were there for Sondheim, not D.T. Max, who repeatedly peppers his subject with the same dumb questions and flaccid attempts at rhyming and gets smacked down by SS during several delicious exchanges. Max is a nudnik. His constant framing of his professional arrangement with Sondheim in romantic relationship terms ("ditching me") is incredibly irritating. When Sondheim declines further work on the profile, Max goes into a tailspin of wounded feelings and claims, "My interviews had all been slowly closing in on the connection between Sondheim the person and the artist."
Oh, honey, how delusional.
Later on the same page, "And the relationship was ... worth fighting for. Sondheim was just too fascinating, too absorbing, and to unusual for me to let go of. . ... and we had come so far." LEAVE THE MAN ALONE!! I almost hid under my desk in second-hand embarrassment when Max describes sending Sondheim an e-mail quoting Maria's line to Anita in "West Side Story,"
"You were in love, or so you said." LEAVE. THE. MAN. ALONE. Sondheim rips back, "You should know better." Iconic!

We had come so far? They didn't go far at all. Mostly because D.T. Max is a fan -- and a rather lazy one -- who went into his project with no real knowledge or insight about musical theatre and a very limited knowledge or interest in Sondheim's artistic legacy. I longed for just one or two really interesting questions about the artistic process that would have allowed Sondheim to share memorable insights, but again and again Max stuck to the basics that we've all heard Sondheim talk about already. "What comes first, the lyrics or the music?"

How about, "Is there any character you can recall being especially difficult or pleasant to write songs for?"
"I think most Sondheim fans would recognize the French horn solo at the end of 'Sunday' as two of the most emotionally powerful notes in the musical theatre canon. Do you remember when that particular interval came to you in the composing of "Sunday in the Park...?"

"I was thinking about 'A Little Priest,' a six-minute number that contain an incredible series of clever rhymes -- how many verses ended up on the chopping block? Forgive the pun."

"Over the years as you've had conversations with actors in your productions, is there any particular song or songs that come up repeatedly as being especially challenging to get through? Like, I am thinking about Sara Jane Moore in 'The Gun Song' ("Assassins") pulling props out of her bag and getting through the lyrical and musical complexities of her verse, it's a killer. Do you ever get affectionate grief about moments like that?"

"A lot of people are shocked when they see 'A Little Night Music' and find out that the entire score is comprised of waltzes: was that a natural development as you began writing, or was it part of your initial concept?"

"I think 'Pretty Women' is one of the most beautiful and saddest duets ever written. My own interpretation of it is that Sweeney and the Judge are both singing about the same women in the conflicting context of evil and grieving -- and the reason it works dramatically is that Judge Turpin is a connection to Sweeney's wife and daughter, which makes it harder for Sweeney to just slit Turpin's throat. So they get this devastating duet. Am I onto something?"

The interviews are only as lively as Mr. Sondheim makes them as he fields boring questions and bears the weight of the D.T. Max's neediness. The book picks up some energy when Meryl Streep and Paul and Alex Gemignani join the conversation, but on his own, Max doesn't know what to do with his magnificent subject but badger him about the Bunuel project and fuss about how Sondheim is reacting to him.

Oh well, at least we have Sondheim's own marvelous two-volume examination of his art.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Sondheim was one of the great musical talents of our time. His genius will entertain us for generations to come. How wonderful that the author was privileged to spend some (not nearly enough) one on one time with him. Sondheim appears reticent about his life and I only wish he had been a bit more forthcoming. Excellent representation of a fascinating and talented man!

My thanks to the author, D.T. Max, and to the publisher, Harper Collins Publishers, for my copy of this book. #Goodreads Giveaway

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engaging series of interviews that The New Yorker journalist DT Max wrote profiling the indomitable Stephen Sondheim from 2017-2019.

Like Mr. Max, I have an affection and a connection to the work of Sondheim’s. Being a gay man trying to find and process work, art and love- these are things about Mr. Sondheim’s personal life I’ve always related to. These interviews are Mr. Max attempting to document the creation of a new musical Sondheim announced he was writing, a musical vignette inspired by the films of Luis Bunuel.

As he attempts his project, Mr. Max finds himself outwitted by. Sondheim know all too well that there is a writer attempting to get information out of him, which often made him quite cantankerous and ornery. But Max was trying to do his job, and even if he didn’t get the project he wanted done, he was helped by interviews with the Paul and Alexander Gemignani, and Meryl Streep, who were a part of Sondheim’s inner circle. Overall, Finale is a beautiful glimpse into the words and genius of a composer that changed music and drama forever.

Postscript: I did see the final musical Sondheim wrote based on the films of Bunuel’s, it’s called Here We Are. Starring David Hyde Pierce, Rachel Bay Jones, Michaela Diamond, Bobby Cannavale, and Denis O’Hare, it was a well intentioned musical but it was clear it wasn’t finished. So it was an incomplete musical.

[Evelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The uncomfortable story of a weird guy trying to convince Stephen Sondheim to be friends with him. If I had been in a parasocial relationship with the most accomplished Broadway composer who ever lived, I simply would not have acted like this

[Honah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This guy definitely wanted to have sex with stephen sondheim

[Eva B.]

Babe wake up, new Sondheim book just dropped

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The people reading this brief book are, presumably, die-hard Sondheim fans like me. So I'm fascinated by the diverse spectrum of responses to it. Some don't appreciate the rambling--and random--nature of the conversations that make up this book. It is, admittedly, what remains of an aborted profile that Mr. Sondheim withdrew from.

I, however, simply love that I can "hear" the voice of this genius, a man whose work has moved and challenged me for decades. Yes, I want to hear him discuss his work, but if we're being honest, anything technical he says about music is beyond my understanding. On the other hand, hearing him talk about his dogs, or about playing charades with Meryl Streep, that gives me some sense of who he was as a person. And I'm as interested in the complex and contradictory person as I am the artist. And for me, Finale was a great success for that reason. There are a lot of interviews you can watch of him discussing his work. This is something entirely else.

Throughout the profile, there is discussion of the unnamed project that Mr. Sondheim was working on--struggling with--for several years prior to his death. Mr. Max ends the book with the hope that one day he will be able to see it performed. Oh, me too! Me too!

[Rusty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is for diehard Sondheim fans only, and even then there is little that will be new to them.

To be fair, these interviews were conducted over the course of a few years, which does not help with the disorganized, hodgepodge quality to them. Several of the questions are asked more than once.

Highly unfortunate was DT Max's decision to walk into the interviews with as little information about Sondheim as possible. So, he asks many questions that any Sondheim fan already knows the answers to. Even Sondheim himself occasionally seems to answer the questions with an attitude/tone that basically says, "Couldn't you have done a little research beforehand?"

And FYI - when you're talking to Sondheim, if you decide to "impress" him with some of your own lyrics, please make sure that they RHYME first....and don't give him attitude when he suggests your rhyme scheme is off. And whatever you do, DO NOT go through his own songs, trying to "snag" him with a rhyme he made that you've decided doesn't really work. He won't react well.

[Kaye · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished this book on the same day I attended a concert featuring Bernadette Peters performing with our local symphony. Most of the numbers were by Stephen Sondheim. She was amazing and his songs genius. Sadly the same can’t be said for this book.

D.T. Max working as a writer for the New Yorker transcribes five conversations he had with Sondheim in 2016-2017. But there isn’t a lot of context for the conversations. Evidently, Max wrote a 1000 word published piece but was hoping to create a major profile that never happens. The interviews are rambling and haphazard. I don’t need to know that they both once had a dog with the same name. I wanted to learn his process or thoughts on creating his shows or about legends he worked with. That isn’t this book. The most interesting story to me was Meryl Streep mentioning playing charades with him while they are listening to Audra McDonald perform. He comments about Andrew Lloyd Weber saying I don’t remember which ones (shows) I have seen. It is a conversation but it doesn’t tell me much.

I think someone interested in Sondheim should read the two books he wrote himself or a Wiki page. Sadly I didn’t learn much here. Thank you to NetGalley and Harper for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Breanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the writer of this unbearable - and learning he lives in the same town as me cemented it. The writer was self-absorbed in a piece that’s supposedly about Sondheim. The conversations were interesting, and Sondheim is fascinating enough of a brain to enjoy hearing his anecdotes, but this seemed to be more of a book about DT Max rather than Sondheim. Not the end of the world, but not the book I wanted to read.

[Robert Barrow · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an embarrassing book. Instead of Mr. Max preparing for his interviews, he tells us that through an approach of ignorance, he hopes to dislodge a more authentic Stephen Sondheim. But, don't worry, Dear Reader, he was in a school production of WEST SIDE STORY. Throughout the book, Mr. Max follows up each tone deaf blunder with a Monday-morning quarterback explanation of why it wasn't a mistake. Mr. Max speaks about music as though he understands it. He does not. He misuses musical terminology and makes sweeping statements followed up by a "trust me – I understand the intricacies" false bluster. Poor Stephen Sondheim, suffering each bone-headed question until he finally must call it quits like a big-hearted animal lover needing to return the hopeless dog to the shelter: I'm sorry, I just can't do this anymore. Some might say – I'd rather have this than nothing and David Benedict's authorized bio seems to be lost in writer's block. Still, there are dozens of interviews, unpublished, and with long transcriptions, that could have shone instead of this thing.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some wonderful insight from Sondheim (and Streep and Gemignani père et fils). But the book was a bit maddening because the author showed a complete lack of awareness about aspects of Sondheim. For instance - as a reader, I don't care that he kept failing in crafting rhymes of which Sondheim approved. It made him (Max) look amateurish and desperate.

[soup · Rating 3 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed Sondheim’s rambles, the way his mind works very much connected with me. I was not a huge fan of the authors interview style, and his lack of general theater knowledge was slightly bothersome, but not atrocious. Definitely recommend if you like Sondheim or 70s musical theater, not sure if it’s a book for a very wide audience outside of that.

Also dude, stop bugging him about his project that’s not how the creative process works omg

[Nicole VanderDoes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The intimacy of this book and how the interview process is unveiled is fascinating and at times uncomfortable. Although almost overly committed to ensuring the book is about Sondheim, D. T. Max reveals just enough of himself to make the structure work, because Sondheim would never write a one-man show. Their ill-defined, unbalanced yet reciprocal relationship is the soul of the book. And the most vibrant interviews are those during which others are present and the banter begins to resemble an ensemble number.

Now I need to go listen to Merrily. And Company. And Putting it Together. And so many more…

[Grace Goble · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok it’s like a 3.5 stars to be fair. I know this is the nature of it but somehow I was expecting to learn more about Sondheim the man and not just his work. Which is of COURSE the whole point Max is making but I still wish!! I enjoyed though and just reading the things Sondheim said in casual conversation was lovely

[Wes · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the author's pontification reads a bit overwrought at times, this is a fascinating picture into the last few years of Sondheim's life as he worked on what would become his final project. The conversations naturally occur through the lens of retrospection, but reading this made me all the more curious about Sondheim's thoughts and process in the thick of his success, not when age was taking its toll on his writing and his acute ability to distill the most profound pieces of human experience into a few lines of music. I'm excited to read more of his own work to gather a little more context and insight into his process; but regardless, Sondheim was one of the greats and I feel honored to have (partially) existed in the same timeline as him.

Perhaps my biggest take away from these conversations is how greatly Sondheim enjoyed collaborating. Working with specific directors, conductors, book writers for specific projects because he knew his own strengths, but also when their strengths outweighed his own--and he understood how that eventually led to a better final product. The challenge of doing your best, then working with others to make it even better--that's how you build a legacy.


"... the joy of the theater is that from generation to generation, from year to year, the production is alive, because it can be done differently. Even night to night as we all know. It's not the same show tonight as it was last night... the fun is allowing people to re-interpret."

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 lengthy conversations that D. T. Max, a writer with The New Yorker had with Stephen Sondheim beginning in 2017, until his death. Very good and insightful. A breeze to read.

[Marisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the conversational style of this book. Seemed to give a realistic perspective of Sondheim as an irascible and still passionate old man without making him a saint or villan. My favorite is Into The Woods and that was less mentioned than some of his other works 😀

[DunkinDad · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a courageous book this is. The contents of four of its five chapters first appeared in highly polished form in The New Yorker: “Opening Night” and “Closing Night” ran as “Talk of the Town” pieces on May 15, 2017, and March 18, 2019, respectively, and much of the wide-ranging conversation presented in “New York Run” and “Traveling Company” appeared online on February 14, 2022, almost three months after Sondheim’s death.

The magazine pieces were fun to read and highly informative when they appeared, since they offered insights into the new “Company” and other recent productions; reminiscences about Broadway; glimpses of Sondheim at ease with Meryl Streep, Liam Neeson, Mia Farrow, and Paul and Alex Gemignani; and bits and pieces about Sondheim’s slow progress on the music and lyrics for “Here We Are,” his long-awaited final musical, which will begin previews at The Shed in New York on September 28 and open on October 22, 2023.

What’s missing from The New Yorker pieces but richly available in this slim book is the full transcript of the conversations that D. T. Max and, I imagine, his editors carefully shaped into the brief “Talk” pieces and the longer but still concise interview. I’m sure I’m not the only subscriber who enjoyed comparing the book with the magazine articles, yet this is risky business for a writer, since publishing transcripts inevitably leads to second-guessing. About the editing. About inadvertent flubs corrected or allowed to stand. Even about the preparedness of the interviewer and the quality of questions asked. After all, so much has already been written about Sondheim, including by Sondheim himself.

Yet every writer has started interviews with compliments and chit-chat, lobbing softballs while saving the more difficult questions for later, and all good writers ask questions when they already know the answers. And Max is certainly a good writer. What he knew or didn’t know in the moment isn’t that important, at least to me; the goal during any interview is to get the subject to talk, to answer questions using his or her own words, to explain his or her thinking. And this Max achieves.

True, Sondheim chose not to go ahead with what Max was hoping for -- a lengthy, in-depth, personal profile for the magazine. (Attention paid to an October 2017 interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda in the New York Times’s T Magazine, Sondheim said, had reminded him how he disliked publicity. “I’d forgotten how much I hate being in the spotlight,” he told Max; it was one reason he had become a writer, rather than a concert pianist.) So the amount that Sondheim reveals about himself, his personal life, his growing up Jewish, even his health, remains slim.

Nonetheless, I bet I’m not the only reader who relished the opportunity to visit Sondheim’s living room in Turtle Bay or Connecticut, or to sit at his table at the PEN America spring gala, and to listen in as he talked and laughed about music and Broadway and his celebrity friends, not to mention his dogs or his orreries or his neighbors, including E. B. White, one of The New Yorker’s most famous writers. These second-hand experiences are all the more precious now that Sondheim has died, leaving us to wish for more time, as you do whenever a loved one passes.

[Ariella · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is infuriating. The ignorance of the interviewer is actually offensive - what a missed opportunity. Two stars because I'll read almost anything by/about Sondheim, but I nearly threw the book at the wall with every other idiotic question.

[Derrick Contreras · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the interviews but it’s not a good book. The journalist gets in the way of what we really want which is Sondheim. The additional writing is sparse and also not great. It’s a 2 star book but the interviews were warm hugs from Sondheim so I gave it 3 stars as a wholistic grade.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

With an emphasis on "conversations," this chronicles Max and Sondheim's series of interviews over multiple years. I appreciate that Max acknowledges his personal bias and feelings towards Sondheim - he's a facilitator for the profile, but also hopefully, a friend.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re into Sondheim, or theatre, or the art of interviewing, D.T. Max's Finale is definitely worth checking out.

In 2016, Max started work on a profile of Sondheim for the New Yorker, with the idea of centering it around the forthcoming “Buñuel” project that Sondheim was working on. For the next several years, he did a series of five interviews (or perhaps ‘conversations’ is a better term) with Sondheim – this slim book is basically a recounting of those conversations.

I’m not someone who reads a ton of profiles of/interviews with theatre people (mostly for the same reason that I avoid most post-show “talkbacks” like the plague). I tend to find them rather insipid, filled with pablum and “information” that is more or less old hat to those who know about the industry to any extent. I also don’t tend to care too much about the personal lives of artists – if the work is good, the work is good. If not, then knowing you came out at 13 or grew up on a farm isn’t going to make it better. (Caveat - if you have a dog or cat and show us cute pictures, that always helps.)

But here’s why I enjoyed this book (and not just because we get several glimpses of Sondheim's dogs). First, Max is attempting to dig deeper, and isn’t content with dumb questions like “where do you get your ideas from?” And this is with a subject who was famously reluctant to let interviewers do so. In his prefaces and wrap-ups of each conversation, he goes into his thoughts on his strategies for getting Sondheim to open up – what worked, what didn’t work, etc. He provides transcripts of the conversations, rather than just “telling us” what was said, and crucially, he isn’t afraid to “look bad.” And Max seems to play pretty straight with his technique – what he cut, what he left in, etc. There are times when Sondheim snaps at him, and it all leads to a much more interesting portrait of an artist who, while much beloved, may not always have been fully understood. For those interested in the art of interviewing, this book is a must-read.

If you’re looking for backstage theatre stories, there are plenty of those – one conversation brings in Meryl Streep, while another includes the Gemignanis (Paul and Alex). I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these anecdotes have been recounted elsewhere (theatre folk love to repeat themselves, and Sondheim was no exception), but there are definitely some new gems here. But there is also a fair bit about Sondheim apart from the world of musical theatre – like his love of puzzling and games, for example.

Given that the supposed throughline of these interviews is the idea of doing a profile around the Buñuel project, there actually isn’t much here about that work-in-progress, aside from some very (VERY) general things. But after reading this I have to believe we will eventually see some version of this get staged and produced (like we saw with the new “Kander and Ebb” shows that came out after Fred Ebb died - Curtains, The Scottsboro Boys, and The Visit) – it sounds like there was too much done to consign it to the dustbin.

[Eden Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visit JetBlackDragonfly (The Man Who Read Too Much) at www.edenthompson.ca/blog
for over 900 book reviews in all genres

Finale - Late Conversations with Stephen Sondheim is an unexpected memoir. This is not a studious biography, just a record of casual conversations between friends over several years. The loose meetings were to form a New Yorker profile timed for the eventual premiere of his new musical, but near the end, Sondheim's famous discomfort with the spotlight ended the project.

In 2017, New Yorker writer D. T. Max met with Sondheim to discuss his latest project, a musical adapting two Luis Buñuel films - The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel.
Sondheim's songs are witty and intricate, with character-driven lyrics filled with doubts and missteps but always yearning for companionship. It's fascinating how he hears lyrics and constructs songs, developing but not repeating. Several shows were in revival - Sunday in the Park with George with Jake Gyllenhaal, Imelda Staunton in Follies, and Company. His own show Sweeney Todd was just done in a London pie shop, and Merrily We Roll Along was about to open to resounding success. At his PEN America honor, they were joined by Meryl Streep, who talked about their famous game nights. Sondheim was a game enthusiast (he co-wrote the puzzle film The Last of Sheila with Anthony Perkins), and their conversations revolved around puns and rhyme.

From his New York townhouse to his home in Connecticut, I found this absorbing and fluid. Some have found it lacking in form, but it does not purport to be a standard biography. No mention is made of his personal life, save a note he married his partner in 2017.
To spend time talking with Sondheim about any part of his career is entertaining. A musical leaves you in a magical world, but a Sondheim musical leaves you admiring the creator. The Buñuel musical reached the reading stage, the first act done. With his death in 2021, it will no doubt reside in his 'trunk' with his other unheard gems.
Sondheim's honours include eight Tonys, eight Grammys, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Japanese Praemium Imperiale, and a theatre was named after him.

[Sean Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tough one. For most Sondheim fans, reading Max’s least-knowledgeable moments speaking to a legend might cause severe frustration egged on by jealousy. I don’t think Max went in with an intent to seem ignorant, or be ignorant, on most accounts. I think he’s a fan of Sondheim - one that comes at his works from a place of honesty, of appreciation, of love of the art. Not as a scholar, sure, but as a biographer that cares, but also has stumbles and moments when his own dented ego gets in the way.

But honestly, I can’t tell exactly how I felt about the author’s approach to writing this profile-cum-oral biography. I oscillated between that very frustration and also a bit of interest at how Sondheim often didn’t seem to mind having to explain some of the more basic details of his life and works (although the pushing of the false rhymes on the writer’s part became extremely grating).

I enjoyed being able to read raw, undiluted conversations with a genius, and a man whose brain has given me so much solace over the years. I loved that it gave insight into his relationship to these most recent revivals and adaptations (“The joy of the theater is that from generation to generation, from year to year, the production is alive, because it can be done differently.”)

There are critiques of the book saying it doesn’t go further than information we’ve already heard from Sondheim a million times. On the other end, many reviews on this site are saying it doesn’t get into any of the information a reader wants on his relationship to his shows.

I feel conflicted about this book, but I also can say I read it in under a day, and took it for what it is: a raw, flawed, but personal tale of a journalist and writer’s relationship to a genius. “My Year with Sondheim” if you will. And if I take it as a supplement to the tonnage of Sondheim content I’ve insatiably consumed over the past decade of my life, I can say I’m just fine with what I got, and I’ll keep moving on to the next.

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to settle on a rating for this one. I'm very glad I read this book, and I enjoyed so many of Sondheim's quips and insights into his work. I'd absolutely recommend it for any fans of Sondheim or those just interested in musical theatre and the artistic process in general (and to be honest I'm more of the latter since I'm still catching up on Sondheim's work). I have to say though that while I'm grateful to D.T. Max for publishing this book, and it's obvious how much he cares about his subject, I was often unimpressed with his interview approach, and desperate for him to ask better questions and direct more focus away from himself... and also to stop trying to get Sondheim to validate his stupid slant rhymes. I suppose almost any interviewer would be outclassed by Sondheim's quickness, gruff wit, and solid personal boundaries, but here the cringe factor gets too high at times. Though since Sondheim doesn't suffer fools, we do get to see some great acerbic humor on display in response to Max's more inane comments, which is great in its own way. I think the conversations with Sondheim in Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George" are better and I would recommend that book first. But Finale is still worth reading too, and a beautifully bittersweet glimpse into the final years of an incredible mind.

[False · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting to hear much that we didn't already know: as he often has said in recent years: "as I have often said..." In interview after interview, Sondheim has kept telling us that he was being completely open and clear about all aspects of his creative life and much, more recently, of his personal one, too. He kept telling us! He tells us again in these pages. But Sondheim fanatics (raising my hand!) are greedy and always want more. Has there ever been a Broadway (or any other) composer who has been as well investigated and documented as he has been?

But, reading Finale, it was just good to be in a fresh and relatively recent present with Mr. Sondheim, rather than in the archival past.

There are some nice added touches: my first glimpse of his husband, Jeff Bromley, aside from his existence noted in obituaries. He plays no major role in the interviews, but his mere presence and the way he quietly steps aside to make way for a visitor/inquisitor speaks volumes of the nature of their relationship. And, as others have mentioned, the Streep interactions are a delight.

I did not expect revelations here - I got everything that I wanted from this book: a bit more of Sondheim's Company. That's a huge gift at the season of the first anniversary of his death.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a little surprised by the low rating. This is a book of conversations. It's right in the title. Some of those conversations are going to relate more to his craft than others, and some of them are going to be more vague in relation to that than others. Personally, I feel like Sondheim has spoken about his craft often enough over the years that reading about his personal life and his interests was the bigger highlight of the book for me. I loved the little tidbits I learned. He loved The Catcher in the Rye, he loved that Audra sang The Glamorous Life, he played charades with Meryl Streep, he didn't get into Hair, etc. I loved that stuff. His memory was fantastic, particularly considering his age. It made me sad to read about his work on the new show, knowing as I do that attempts to move it forward have stalled recently. I do feel like publishing this is a little questionable, though. The author makes it clear Sondheim was hesitant about working with him towards the end and that he had lost contact with him before his death, which makes this feel a little opportunistic maybe. I don't know.

[Tom Holehan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This slim volume of interviews with the legendary composer is worth a look even as many of the stories he tells are fairly familiar. There are surprises along the way, however, and I will track down any work that examines the great artist and his incredible output of musical theatre. The problem here, though, and it's not an insignificant one, is that the interviewer/author is more or less fairly insufferable throughout the book. He seems to pride himself on not knowing some basic facts about Sondheim and then purposely seems to goad the legend for answers to things he doesn't want to talk about. It is fairly clear that Sondheim barely tolerated Max throughout this whole process. When the author steps back, however, and you listen to Sondheim's wit and wisdom, FINALE is worth a quick read.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 A slim book recounting a series of interviews with Sondheim for a profile piece for the New Yorker which never completed. After Sondheim’s death in 2021, Max took those conversations, edited, and gives the reader a closer look at this giant of the theatre. Interesting reading, and sort of like watching a game of cat and mouse: one probing and one trying to relate but reserve some semblance of privacy. What I found most revealing was something I never quite thought of before, was that basically Stephen Sondheim spent nearly his entire life famous and marked a genius with all the adulation that would entail. To think of the pressure to produce, and the need to always be cautious with people. I found it a very interesting read, and can only say for myself as a fan, that I am glad he mostly was able to do both.