
Available:*
Library | Call Number | Material Type | Home Location | Status |
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Central Library | PS3537.I663 Z473 1999 | Adult Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction Area | Searching... |
Central Library | PS3537.I663 Z473 1999 | Adult Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction Area | Searching... |
Orchard Park Library | PS3537.I663 Z473 1999 | Adult Non-Fiction | Open Shelf | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
The renowned American playwright reveals how, following the death of his wife, he found creative inspiration in his career and a new relationship.
Author Notes
Born in the Bronx, Simon had childhood ambitions to be a doctor, but after attending New York University and the University of Denver, he turned instead to television, writing comedy for Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, and others. His first play, Come Blow Your Horn (1958), about a young rebel who moves into the luxurious apartment of his older brother, is partly autobiographical. Since then, Simon has written numerous successful comedies. Most are about the middle class, the comedy deriving from situations of personal frustration. Although detractors have accused him of superficiality, today Simon is widely considered one of the world's most successful playwrights. His plays have been produced in community theaters throughout the country and have also been made into films. He is so well known that when he opens a new play on Broadway his name is often put in larger letters than the title of his work. A master at comedy, Simon gets laughs not just from clever gags and one-liners, but also by presenting deviations from the normal in character, situation, and thought. Although he seems to espouse conventional values, it is the dramatic deviation from these social norms that make his works so funny. Some of Simon's most commercially successful plays include Barefoot in the Park (1963), The Odd Couple (1965), Plaza Suite (1968), The Last of the Red-Hot Lovers (1969), The Sunshine Boys (1972), and California Suite (1976). But Simon has also been willing to experiment. The Good Doctor (1973) is based on humorous stories by Anton Chekhov (see Vol. 2). God's Favorite (1974) is adapted from the Biblical story of Job, and Fools (1981) is set in an idyllic Russian hamlet where the villagers suffer from chronic stupidity. In recent years, Simon's plays have become increasingly autobiographical, reflecting both his Jewish background and events from his later life. Chapter Two (1977) was written in agonized response to the death of his first wife, Joan, and his subsequent courtship of and marriage to actress Marsha Mason. Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983), the first of an autobiographical trilogy, is set in Brooklyn in 1937 with the teenaged hero, aspiring writer Eugene, modeled on the young Neil Simon. Biloxi Blues (1985) shows Eugene learning about life and developing his writing skills while at boot camp during World War II. Broadway Bound (1986), the most successful of the trilogy, is vaguely reminiscent of a Tennessee Williams memory play: Eugene and his older brother attempt to break into the world of professional comedy writing while coping with their parents' impending divorce. The figure of the mother, Kate, is one of Simon's finest achievements. Over the years, Neil Simon's plays have matured artistically and philosophically, and he has begun to gain the admiration not just of his audiences, but also of theater artists, critics, and scholars. The themes about which he writes are important ones: sibling rivalry, the crises of puberty, and the frustrations of sexual awakening; the values of friendship, love, marriage, and family; midlife problems associated with infidelity, divorce, and death; and, finally, the importance of individual dignity. Neil Simon's reputation has been enhanced by numerous awards. He received an Emmy in 1957 and again in 1959 for his television work. He received the Tony in 1963, 1965, 1970, and 1985. He was given the Writer's Guild of America West Award for his screenplays in 1969, 1971, 1972, and 1976. In 1983 he received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. In 1983 and again in 1985 he received the Outer Circle Award. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews 3
Booklist Review
Simon made his name with lighthearted, middlebrow comedies about middle-class New Yorkers battling life in the city. In the early '80s, first in Brighton Beach Memoirs, he changed his style. The plays became darker, their stories more bittersweet, their characters more complex. Simon no longer used jokes to shield strong feelings but instead used humor to open up his characters' rich emotional lives. Why he changed is one of the unstated questions that powers this memoir, a companion volume to Rewrites (1996). It recounts the second half of Simon's life, starting with the life-shattering impact of the death of his first wife, Joan, of cancer at 40, and proceeding through the ensuing 30 years, during which Simon had periods of incredible fertility and others in which his creativity dried up and he feared he would never write again. Simon pays close attention to the ups and downs of his emotional life, including his further marriages, to actress Marsha Mason and to Diane Lander, and the low points after each marriage cracked up. Simon's memoir is warm, open, and highly readable, and though its tone is confessional, Simon avoids the narcissistic excesses that mar many autobiographies. He is a born wordsmith, and his rich, rare, wise memoir is as enjoyable as a good novel. --Jack Helbig
Publisher's Weekly Review
Simon begins his hauntingly sad yet often quite funny second memoir (following his 1996 Rewrites) in 1973, on the day after the burial of his first wife, who died of cancer. Things look bad at first, as the massively successful American playwright (he's won the Pulitzer Prize and three Tony awards, and written 40 plays and almost as many original and adapted screenplays) can't even get out of bed. It thus comes as a great relief, if also something of a surprise, when Simon meets and marries actress Marsha Mason three months later. In Mason, Simon finds not only an outstanding interpreter of his words (Goodbye Girl, Only When I Laugh), but also an inspiration (Chapter Two, a play about a widower's second marriage). When his relationship with Mason collapses nine years later, Simon plunges back into a depression that is exacerbated by his first-ever career slump. Eventually, he applies a combination of innovative personal therapies (he spends a lot of time with his dog and shoots a pistol into his swimming pool) and professional luck (he stumbles over a draft of the eventual megahit Brighton Beach Memoirs that he had penned several years before) and claws his way out of his slump. His greatest successes still lay ahead (along with another marriageÄand divorce and remarriage) in the form of his BB trilogy (Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound), featuring his alter ego Eugene Jerome. Simon says that a memoir should serve two functions: "to pass on as much as you're willing to tell" and "to discover a truth about yourself you never had the time or courage to face before." A superb and introspective raconteur, he achieves both goals many times over in this exhilarating book. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
"Just as I never plan what play or film I might write next, I don't plan on what I will write next in these memoirs," says Simon. Well, Neil, it certainly shows. Readers plodding through this second self-portrait will find it hard to believe that this is the same person who wrote The Odd Couple and The Sunshine Boys. While Simon's stage dialog crackles with wit, his first-person narrative voice is as flat as the paper it's written on. This book picks up where his first memoir, Rewrites, concluded; here Simon provides a laundry list of his mid-life achievements, from winning a Pulitzer Prize to marrying and divorcing women in less time than it takes most guys to wear out a pair of sneakers. The book's most interesting moments come when Simon talks about the creative act of writingÄwhich isn't very often. Nonetheless, given Simon's enormous popularity, this book is still an important purchase for all public and large academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/99.]ÄMichael Rogers, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.