Writers

By Barry Gifford

Book Overview

In Writers , great American storyteller Barry Gifford paints portraits of famous writers caught in imaginary vulnerable moments in their lives. In prose that is funny, grotesque, and a touch brutal, Gifford shows these writers at their most human, which is to say at their worst- they are liars, frauds, lousy lovers, and drunks. This is a world in which Ernest Hemingway drunkenly sets explosive trip wires outside his home in Cuba, Marcel Proust implores the angel of death as a delirious Arthur Rimbaud lies dying in a hospital bed, and Albert Camus converses with a young prostitute while staring at himself in the mirror of a New York City hotel room. In Gifford's house of mirrors, we are offered a unique perspective on this group of literary greats. We see their obsessions loom large, and none more than a shared needling preoccupation with mortality. And yet these stories, which are meant to be performed as plays, are also tender and thoughtful exercises in empathy. Gifford asks- What does it means to devote oneself entirely to art? And as an artist, what defines success and failure?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1609806492
• ISBN13: 9781609806491
• Release Date: November 2015
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 8.1"