Book Description

In this first book-length biography of Mercedes de Acosta, theater historian Robert A. Schanke adroitly mines lost archival materials and mixes in his own interviews with de Acosta’s intimates to correct established myths and at last construct an accurate, detailed, and vibrant portrait of the flamboyantly uninhibited early-twentieth-century author, poet, and playwright.

Born to wealthy Spanish immigrants, Mercedes de Acosta (1893–1968) lived in opulence and traveled in the same social circles as the Astors and Vanderbilts. Introduced to the New York theater scene at an early age, her dual loves of performance and of women informed every aspect of her life thereafter. Alice B. Toklas’s observation, "Say what you will about Mercedes, she’s had the most important women in the twentieth century," was well justified, as her romantic conquests included such internationally renowned beauties as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Isadora Duncan, and Eva Le Gallienne as well as Alla Nazimova, Tamara Karsavina, Pola Negri, and Ona Munson.

More than a record of her personal life and infamous romances, this account offers the first analysis of the complete oeuvre of de Acosta’s literary works, including three volumes of poetry, two novels, two film scripts, and a dozen plays. Although only two of her plays were ever published during her lifetime, four of them were produced, featuring such stage luminaries as John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, and Eva Le Gallienne. Critics praised her first volume of poetry, Moods, in 1919 and predicted her rise to literary fame, but the love of other women that fueled her writing also limited her opportunities to fulfill this destiny. Failing to achieve any lasting fame, she died in relative poverty at the age of seventy-five.De Acosta lived her desires publicly with verve and vigor at a time when few others would dare, and for that, she paid the price of marginalized obscurity. Until now. With "That Furious Lesbian" Schanke at last establishes Mercedes de Acosta’s rightful place as a pioneer—and indeed a champion—in the early struggle for lesbian rights in this country. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Much Needed Bio on a Woman Many Loved Yet Even More Forgot
This is an interesting account of her life. I found that there is even more information at the author's website - take a look and you'll learn more about this woman...There is a paperback coming out soon so check out the site and come back to get the paperback!

www.mercedesdeacosta.com

Silk purse vs. sow's ear
Schanke's previous book on the stage actress Eva Le Gallienne was a knockout, and this one suffers in comparison. Perhaps the character of Mercedes was just too hard to pin down, and this may not be Schanke's fault. Acosta's work seems slight and dated, and no amount of cutting and pasting is going to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. This leaves her as a curiosity, a woman who must have been something in her prime, when so many gorgeous women succumbed to her; and then as a victim of what we would now call "erotomania," desperately clinging to the hope that someday Garbo would smile on her again, even though she must have known that "outing" Garbo in her insipid memoir "Here Lies the Heart" (which Le Gallienne heatedly called, "The Heart Lies and Lies and Lies") wasn't the way to curry favor with such a private individual. The last chapters of the book are pathetic in extremis, it's almost hard to believe Mercedes stayed alive from week to week she was so poor and abject, having no money of her own and totally dependent on charity from others. She was like Job in every way except, of course, genitally. But then again Job was probably pretty annoying too. Schanke does a fine job putting together the pieces of a fabulist's life, jigsaw pieces from many different puzzles.

Overdue but uninspired
De Acosta has long needed an biography since her own autobiography "Here Lies the Heart" often feels fictional. While Schanke gets the facts and corrects some of the autobiography's inaccuracies, he does not ever convince one that this was a story worth telling. The vitality and outragousness of her own book makes de Acosta a compelling figure, but the recitation of facts in this one does not.

This book has a hard task: telling the life story of a mediocre writer best known for who she had sex with. And while the book does not make a strong case for de Acosta being worth the attention, it is quite facinating for anyone interested in gay history. In addition, the figures arround Mercedes (such as her sister, Garbo, Poppy Kirk) emerge as intriguing in a way that de Acosta does not.

Jehanne d'Arc and Mercedes: Two Saints in one Act.
I guess it took the Roman Church 500 years to rehabilitate, integrate, and neutralize a troubling voice from the past. Mercedes de Acosta had no such qualms and reincarnated Jehanne in the person of Eva le Gallienne in the 1925 production of Jehanne d'Arc.

Robert Schake's " That Furious Lesbian": The Story of Mercedes Acosta is a sustained effort to peel away the recurring labels that obliterate the magnificent other that was Mercedes.

Schanke's re-creative efforts, stemming in large part from Mercedes' poverty driven sale of her "Aspern Letters" to the Rosenbach Library, are well worth the attention of those still capable of amazement before those bolides which burst through Victorian conventions into a new century. ... Read more

Book Description

Michael Chekhov was Stanislavsky's star student and a master acting teacher. Exiled from Soviet Russia, he made his way to England and then to the United States, spending his last years asan actor and acting teacher in Hollywood. Along the way he introduced countless students to his acting technique known most famously for it's "psychological gesture." Series editor Franc Chamberlain traces Chekhov's history and development, and lays a workshop-structured series of exercises for actors studying the Chekhov technique. Invigorating and insightful, the volume will help acting students to engage their imaginations and students to understand this fascinating man. ... Read more

Book Description

Michael Pennington_s work on his solo show about Anton Chekhov has taken London_s "Russian Actor" from the Trans-Siberian Railway to Soviet and post-Soviet Moscow, into the repertoires of the National Theatre and the Old Vic and across Europe. Are You There, Crocodile? also includes accounts of his work on Dostoevsky_s Crime and Punishment, Tolstoy_s Strider and other Russian projects, as well as essays on Chekhov_s four masterpieces.

Book Description

A witty, sensitive and exemplary biography on Sir Ralph Richardson, a prominent acting figure of the 20th Century. Proof-read and edited by Richardson himself, this provides an otherwise unknown insight into Sir Ralph's background and acting career. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The title says it all.
A paragraph from the preface:
The twenty-one outstanding artists in "Actors' Lives" were chosen, in collaboration with colleagues at Theatre Communications Group, from a list of four hundred excellent possibilities I compiled by scouring "Theatre World" from 1950 to the present, "Players Guide" and "Who's Who", collections of theatre programs at the Lincoln Center performing arts library, and the files of the Non-Traditional Casting Project. Whittling down the list was agonizing. Interviewing the chosen few was often as exhilarating as seeing their finest work onstage.
This is a surprising and informative book. I found that I knew many of the actors, but not by name. Again I was surprised to find such diverse backgrounds to what I thought were just one time TV or movie actors. Reading about any one actor is well worth the price. Yet you will not be able to pass even those that you never heard of. I found a picture of Peter Gallager [While You Were Sleeping (1995) ASIN: 6304765266] in the book even thought he was not on the list.
The actors covered in this book are:
Frances Conroy, Clayton Corzatte, Olympia Dukakis, Frances Foster, Josie de Gunzman, Anthony Heald, Richard Jenkins, Cherry Jones, James Earl Hones, Randall Duk Kim, Jane Lind, Joan MacIntosh, John Mahoney, Paul McCrane, Isabell Monk, Joe Morton, Howie Seago, Freda Foh Shen, Josef Sommer, Richard Thomas, Jeff Weiss ... Read more

Book Description

A middle-aged playwright—in conflict with his ex-wife, his current girlfriend, and a legion of creditors—journeys from Hollywood to Atlanta to work with his youthful idol, legendary avant-garde director Joseph Chaikin.Thus begins a roller coaster ride of a very unusual sort, combining personal revelations with theatrical obsessions, a step-by-step disclosure of a master director’s rehearsal process with a search for spiritual truth (and a decent night’s sleep). Just hop aboard and get a backstage pass to the "holding-on-by-your-fingernails" reality of the contemporary American theater. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Best Revenge: How Theater Saved My Life and Has Been Killing
This is a terrific book. It's a great read, a marvelous look at the struggles of an artist trying to make a living in the theater, and a must buy for anyone who plans to make the theater his or her life.

Fascinating and funny! Personal memoir at its best
This book may seem at first glance like something for a "niche" market -- people in the theater or the like -- but it's actually so entertaining, funny, skillfully written, moving and wonderfully offbeat that it speaks to any reader no matter what their interests. Fife has found a way to resonate with the universal experience of success/failure that we all share while still remaining excrutiatingly personal, honest and true to his own real story - and that's what memoir should do! All students of the theater should read this, but so should all students of life. And if you do, I guarentee it won't feel like "studying"...enjoy!

A real page-turner
I know that a book is good when I have to put everything else on hold until I finish it. This one grabbed me right from the beginning. On the very first page I felt as though I was the playwright, experiencing the highs and lows of being accepted, rejected and accepted again as an artist. This book was a lot of fun, full of dry wit and good humor. I especially enjoyed getting the inside track into the world of Broadway and film and finding out from a first-hand source what some of those Oscar-winning superstar actors are REALLY like. ... Read more

Book Description

A Gilbert is of no use without a Sullivan. With these words, W.S. Gilbert summed up his reasons for persisting in his collaboration with Arthur Sulllivan despite the combative nature of their relationship. In fact, Michael Ainger suggests in Gilbert and Sullivan the success of the pair's work is a direct result of their personality clash, as each partner challenged the other to produce his best work. After exhaustive research into the D'Oyly Carte collection of documents, Ainger offers the most detailed account to date of Gilbert and Sullivan's starkly different backgrounds and long working partnership. Having survived an impoverished and insecure childhood, Gilbert flourished as a financially successful theater professional, married happily and established himself as a property owner. His sense of proprietorship extended beyond real estate, and he fought tenaciously to protect the integrity of his musical works. Sullivan, the product of a supportive family who nourished his talent, was much less satisfied with stability than his collaborator. His creative self-doubts and self-demands led to nervous and physical breakdowns, but it also propelled the team to break the successful mode of their earliest work to produce more ambitious pieces of theater, including The Mikado and The Yeoman of the Guards. Offering previously-unpublished draft librettos and personal letters, this thorough double-biography will be an essential addition to the library of any Gilbert and Sullivan fan. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Even though Oscar Wilde--playwright, wit, critic, and convicted sodomite--died exiled and disgraced in 1900, his memory and influence remain central to British culture. In 1918 the specter of Wilde manifested itself in what social historian Philip Hoare calls "the trial of the century." This shocking libel case was brought by American actress Maud Allan, who had just appeared in a production of Wilde's Salome, against Noel Pemberton Billing, an arch-conservative M.P., who accused her of being a member of "the cult of the clitoris": his catch phase for a sexual and social degeneracy that he saw as destroying England. Billing also claimed that the German government (with whom, you will recall, England was at war) had "a black book" containing the names of 47,000 prominent members of the British society who were "in the cult of Wilde"--a euphemism for quot;degenerate" homosexuals--and who were potential blackmailees, subversives, and traitors. As in the Wilde trials 23 years earlier, the real issue here was an attack by conservatives and moralists against social and sexual freedom.

As in his earlier work, Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant and Noel Coward: A Biography, Hoare proves himself to be an incisive social critic and a vigorous historian who illuminates the paradoxes of the recent past with insight and passion. But the real power of Oscar Wilde's Last Stand (that Hoare makes clear again and again) is its understanding that Wilde--social rebel and martyr to artistic and sexual freedom--remains, in so many ways, under attack by conservative social forces even today. --Michael Bronski END ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The "Fourth" Oscar Wilde Trial.
There are a number of ways to count the trials of Oscar Wilde, but what's becoming widely known as the "fourth" Oscar Wilde trial is a fascinating incident which occurred after his death. It is certainly must reading for anyone wanting to be acquainted with the Wilde story; especially if you're American. Maud Allen, the Canadian-American who brought about the libel action which initiated the trial, is familar to Canadians and some Americans since Felix Cherniavsky's 1991 book "The Salome Dancer" was published and mentioned this incident. And now Philip Hoare, a Briton, provides us with a fuller treatment of the trial's flow. Hoare's book is nicely written and has some stunning photographs of Maud Allan performing on stage. My only criticism is that Mr. Hoare says Ms. Allan's opponent, Noel Pemberton Billing, was "Mosley Before His Time." He refers to Sir Oswald Mosley, a later leader of the British fascists. If Mr. Hoare really knew his fascists, rather than his sterotypes, he would know that Mosley affiliated with the left wing tradition as a moderate member of parliment. Mosley continued to advocate those economic remedies as a fascist, continued his interest and associations with Britains's cultural vanguard, and was remarkably tolerant about homosexuals. In fact, it's no secret that Mosley's son by a first marriage, Nicolas, was homosexual, and to that son Mosley left the papers detailing his long, extraordinary, and tragic career. Today Nickolas is a prominent and respected liberal novelist, and his books about his father, Rules of the Game and Beyond the Pale, indicate that respect was mutual.

Rule, Britannia
This is how history should be written: exhaustively researched, well organized, good command of the language. This book goes way beyond what the title promises, giving us an encompassing social history of the "upper classes" of Britain from 1900 to 1918. Many surprises here, all of them believable. The only request: to give us, in an appendix, a more thorough vitae of the players. ... Read more

Book Description

Eric Bentley's graceful look at George Bernard Shaw was first published over 50 years ago, and time has only strengthened the conviction of his ideas and arguments about Shaw. When it arrived in the late 1940's, this book was hailed by the great poet William Carlos Williams as "the best treatise on contemporary manners I think I have ever read. I was fascinated and rewarded in the depths of my soul." Even Shaw himself described the book as "the best critical description of my public activities I have yet come across." ... Read more

Book Description

As a boy growing up in the East Bronx, Harold Thau dreamed the American Dream. In Bronx to Broadway, he pays homage to that experience which carried him from a sea of tenements to the exciting Great White Way and a successful career as a theatre producer. Rich in colorful inside stories of show business personalities, Harold Thau provides a portrait of the entertainment industry seldom evoked and largely unseen, told with insight, humor, and a sense of humanity about the business of show business. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Very interesting, informative, & insightful--I enjoyed it!
Hal Thau's career, as with most high achievers, is a study of perseverance, determination and introspection. As he discusses the "pioneering spirit" in one chapter, the reader sees clearly through his examples and experiences that Thau does indeed have the pioneering spirit...and the ability to work with others (actors, entertainers, etc.) who also have it to help them "focus." I found his mix of sharing about the celebrities he managed and the personal glimpses of his own life and values excellent. I also appreciated Thau's poetic way of expressing things...his observations and introspection are thoughtfully and often poignantly expressed... It is so very interesting to read of this man's success in show business/management/producing and to also see he has kept his feet on the ground. His is an example of a life in which both worldly success and personal success are achieved and balanced. I highly recommend this book for all who share an entrepreneurial spirit--for all who seek to follow their dreams...it is an inspiring and insightful book... ... Read more

Book Description

Based on his own experience and the teachings of his celebrated but distant father, Lee, John Strasberg defines the talent of becoming real in a role. He surveys the traditional partition between life and theatre, and urges actors to make it a dynamic living membrane through which vital elements may pass. John Strasberg has written his own intensely personal story about his father's work and the Strasberg dynasty. It is a painful odyssey during which he relives the often demanding role he played as son to a man who was the central father figure to a generation of American actors. ... Read more

Book Description

In the Company of Actors is a wonderful ensemble of entertaining and illuminating discussions with sixteen of the most celebrated and prestigious actors in contemporary theatre, film and television.The impressive list of actors includes: Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Brenda Fricker, Nigel Hawthorne, Jane Lapotaire, Janet McTeer, Ian Richardson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw, Anthony Sher, Janet Suzman, David Suchet, and Penelope Wilton. Carole Zucker covers a wide range of topics including the actors' main childhood influences, their actor training, early acting experience, preparation for roles and sound advice for coping with actors' problems such as creative differences with other actors or directors. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A voice for actors
Don't let the "reflections" of the title throw you: this is no drowsy academic tome. This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in actors and acting. Many of the subjects are relatively unknown on this side of the Atlantic, but if you care about the process of real acting, this book will take you in, chapter by chapter. Critic Kenneth Tynan said "The study of actors should be a full-time task, worthy of the same passionate scholarship which lepidopterists devote to butterflies." What we have here is that passion's result, and Carole Zucker has given voice to the butterflies.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About British Actors...
Carole Zucker has just given us the finest book ever written on British actors.'In the Company of Actors...' is an entertaining, informative and thorough investigation into the lives and craft of some of Britain and Ireland's most popular and accomplished thespians. This particular book is so far away from the standard "actor's biography" that it would be futile to compare it to any other publication around today. It simply stands apart on all level. It is most certainly destined to become a classic. Meeting with such famous figures as Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, Nigel Hawthorne, Stephen Rea and Miranda Richardson (among others), the author is cleverly dissolving herself into the background of the interviewing process, thus allowing the actors to really open up and to freely speak about what constitutes acting for theatre, film and television. Zucker succeeds in creating a climate of intimacy never before reached (in any given interview), and her book will make you feel like a privileged reader with a direct access into the minds of these extremely talented people. There are even moments of self-revelation which makes 'In the Company of Actors..' a brillant excercise in deep social interaction. It is an impressive display of professional savoir-faire on the part of Mrs. Zucker and a major contribution to acting studies as a whole. For the aspiring actor, the book also offers a lot of insights into the business. Whether it be Stephen Rea explaining the differences between the Irish, British and American film industries, or Academy Award nominee Janet McTeer discussing the difficulty of being a woman actor (in a male-dominated world), the book covers all bases from all angles, and no stones are left unturned. Subtely broaching theoretical and practical concerns about acting, 'In the Company of Actors...' is accessible to both, the neophyte and the acting student. If you are interested in knowing more about this wonderful and crazy profession, do yourself a favor and go buy this amazing book now! ... Read more

Book Description

A fascinating look into the life of one of Hollywood's hottest film stars.

For twenty years Gabriel Byrne has been to the forefront of Irish actors and producers internationally. From his appearance in John Boorman's Excalibur in 1981 via Miller's Crossing in 1990 through to Stigmata and End of Days in 1999 and 2000 he has turned his diverse skills and brooding good looks to many different roles.

With Stigmata and End of Days, his appearance on Broadway and the new NBC sitcom, Madigan's Men, which he produced and in which he stars he has hit a new high point in his career.

In vivid cinematic sketches this absorbing memoir presents a series of fascinating glimpses into his public and private life. He leads the reader through his career on stage and screen as both producer and actor. Along the way he shares his impressions of Hollywood, New York and his native Ireland and takes us behind the scenes of his many films.

He has worked with many of the cutting edge directors of international cinema including Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders and the Coen bothers and with many of the finest actors of the late twentieth century-Liam Neeson, Kevin Spacey, Gerard Depardieu, John Turturro, Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon and Christina Ricci to name a few.

Gabriel Byrne's unique narrative style colors every page, mixing colloquial dialogue with evocative descriptions. The result is a frank, intimate account that reveals the man-and the writer-behind the actor's many faces. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Pictures in my head, was straight to the point.
I think that Gabriel Byrne did a superb job in writing this book.

He is quite talented as an Actor, but, the Creme de La Creme of being an Author. I admire everything he could account from his childhood in Dublin, Ireland, to how he was treated by his family, his marriage to Ellen Barkin, and to his two children (Jack and Romy), being born.

I don't know if Ellen and Gabriel are still together, but from reading of how Jack was born first, and to Gabriel's daughter, Romy being born three years thereafter. His Prayer to Romy, was simply fantastic! I truly believe he is an excellent father, and I am very proud of him.

If anyone out there has an address for Gabriel, I want to send him the first holy comunion cross, that was stolen from him.

Gabriel Byrne a different side
So you like Gabriel Byrne do you? Well this book will make you like him even more! In the begining it takes you to when Gabriel Byrne's mom and brother are getting ready to come home from the hospital. Gabriel's uncle often adds comical relief to many situations in the book. My favorite part of the book was when Gabriel talked about a nun that hit him with a ruler, I found what Gabriel kept saying to be extremly funny. Anyway this book gives you a perspective on one of hollywoods hottest stars from a different point of view. If you're looking for a laugh or just a great book, "Pictures in my head," is it.

Nice, But Lacking
This is a very sweet book, written by a wonderful actor. Sadly, it lacks a few things. Details, for one. It's very good in some places, and then it seems to rush on when you want to know more. And it jumps around like "Pride and Prejudice"...I had a hard time keeping track of where he was in his life.

All in all, it's a nice story. However, if you read this and "Angela's Ashes" right tight together, you realize something. You realize that even though you thought at first that Gabriel had it kind of bad growing up, he is almost a spoiled little rich kid, compared to Frank McCourt. Let's see some real life, here!

Vivid
I get the impression that Mr. Byrne is superbly sensitive to his surroundings and absorbs everything. I envy his photographic memory and ability to live completely in the moment. :o) This is the perfect book to curl up with under your favorite green soft blanket.

I REALLY LOVE THIS BOOK
I must say this book really surprised me! I got it as a Christmas present last year, and I never expected it, because I had only been a Gabriel Byrne friend for about three months or so, but after I had read it, I felt I knew Gabriel personally. I have never met him, but I am longing to see him. The book is very well written, so I wonder why he doesn't write more. Probably because he doesn't have time... I'm awaiting his new film or book. Whatever it is, I'll buy it. Buy this book, you won't be disappointed. If you're a Byrne fan, it's a must! If you're not, after reading the book, you will be! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT
Lillian Hellman was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th Century. American theatre goers can never forget her classic works,The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes. Her talents didn't stop at playwriting for this great woman went on to write screenplays, news articles and produced a highly acclaimed best selling autobiography. Such a prolific writer and talent has much to share with her readers about her life.

Lillian Hellman:The Image, The Woman is a well researched in depth portrait of the woman that we don't know. Moving beyond the gossip and criticism about Hellman's life, the author gives us a view of her childhood, career and declining days. We get the opportunity to see what made this woman into the great playwright that she was in light of her radical politics, passion and provincial attitudes that were a part of her personality.

Reading about her life makes you wonder how did she ever become writer? Although she has intriguing relationships it is interesting to find her being able to achieve beyond the fortunes of those who mentored her. Her outspoken voice during the McCarthy era makes you wonder how this lady survived. Going through her life you find a woman very much in control of her career, highly protective of those she loves and is not beyond making embellishments about the truth.

I thoroughly enjoyed this intimate portrait of this woman with all of her positive and negative qualities. Her biographer is not judgemental about her life but calls into question those areas in which she was evasive. He doesn't swamp you in cheap gossip or petty quarrels about the merits of her work. Hellman is pictured as an imperfect woman but one who has enriched us with her remarkable life and works. You will come away wanting to know more about her plays and feeling a deep appreciation for the development of this playwright. ... Read more

Book Description

A biography of the sole manager of Laura Keene's Theatre in New York City and one of the most influential members of the 19th century theatre community. ... Read more

Book Description

An affecting, inspiring memoir, I Will Be Cleopatra serves as an indispensable guide for any reader who wishes to gain a clearer insight into Shakespearean theater, and will be one of the most vital books for actors and theater lovers for years to come. This is a riveting account of a determined yet modest woman who became one of the leading classical and Broadway actors of our time, working with such luminaries as Paul Robeson, Laurence Olivier, and Tennessee Williams. Born the daughter of a plumber and a taxi dancer in Australia at the height of the Great Depression, young Zoe Caldwell first appeared on the stage at the age of nine in Melbourne in Peter Pan. So dyslexic that acting was the only way she felt she could communicate, Caldwell became a tried and true professional by the age of fourteen, performing on the radio. Soon she was playing roles under the legendary Elsie Beyer, who sent her to Stratford-on-Avon where she began a Shakespearean career that would culminate in her portrayal of Cleopatra, the Bard's greatest female role. 8 pages of b/w photographs. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great writing from a theatrical diva
Having just journeyed to Melbourne (from Sydney) to see Miss Caldwell in Durenmatt's "The Visit", which is part of the Melbourne Theatre Company's 50th anniversary season (she was also in their first production in 1953),I chanced upon her "semi-autobiography" in a local bookshop. This covers the first half of her dazzling life. Her prose is like her acting: direct, simple, intelligent, moving, riveting and unforgettable. Anyone even remotely interested in the theatre should take the opportunity to read this marvellous book. And if there is ever a chance to see the lady on a stage, RUN, don't walk, to get in line. A great book by a great artist. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (3)

Love at a Distance
The love story at the core of this novel is gleaned only with readerly patience and a certain tolerance for the "editorial" (the editor is in fact the author of the whole thing) gimmick of "entries." If emotions are chaotic, the shape of this work is not. The fussy details are often wonderful, as is the story. But the stubborn structure of this book - the "Encyclopedia" form - serves to distance the subject and her object in much the same way that it distances the reader from the author, who in fact has a lot to say that is important. The story is pure tragedy. Well worth reading, and disturbing on several levels.

A modern form of elegy
" I was first struck by the discrepancy between the book cover and the text, which might account for the disappointment expressed in this, the only review available on Amazon.com. Don't expect to learn all you had never dared to ask about love, in spite of the promising title of the Encyclopedia. You will find the same hiatus between Encyclopedia and Love as between the cover and the text. This discrepancy is further enhanced by the nameless characters, referred to only as "he" and "she". This anonymity serves as a frame, enclosing the short-lived, illuminated moments of a couple who have discovered true love. The various items arranged in alphabetical order give just enough of the story, which seems to be revealed in installments, so that the revelation is cut short before it becomes too emotional. But they also act as prolepses, making us want to know more and also enhancing the fragility of all the details of life, as we become aware of their impending loss. " Divine goodness covers his treasures with a drench of hail. " (V.Woolf) This consciousness lends meaning to the list of items about daily life such as recipes or descriptions of plants in the garden. However, the greatest achievement of the book is to have recreated as through the pieces of a puzzle, the presence of the man "she" mourns : an artist, a lovely, sensitive, humorous and kind person, who seems to have emerged through her love and is now given a second life, as close as possible to immortality, through the writing of this book. The Encyclopedia form is not new, it has been used in French Literature, for example by Flaubert, but as far as I know, not in American literature. The narrator has found an original way of using the dictionary form for what might have been another novel. I would call it a modern form of elegy.

An original and profound love story
I can't recommend An Encylopedia of Love too strongly. It is a highly unusual memoir, not so much the story itself - although that is remarkable enough - but more in the way it is told. It is about two middle-aged people, an American writer living in Britain and a British artist, who meet, fall in love and set up home together, only for disaster to strike when the man is diagnosed with cancer. The writing is so superb that even if the story were told in a straightforward linear fashion it would be absorbing and deeply moving, but Ms Scheil has done something quite different and much more original, challenging and profound both with her story and with her gifts as a writer. The lovers' story, its whole arc from their first meeting to the man's premature death, is broken up into all its details and recounted in alphabetized, indexed and cross-referenced encylopedia form, with about 450 entries, covering everything from their diets and attitude to money to their sexual life, all discussed with admirable frankness, humour and lack of sentimentality. The result is a remarkably detailed and comprehensive portrait of two intertwined lives.

The ideal way to read the book is not to start at the beginning and read it straight through but to dip into it at random, allowing the cross-references to take you where they will, until eventually you find yourself saying on every page "Hey, I've read this before". Even on a second or third reading, the form allows each fragment of the story to remain fresh and somehow different, because it is being read in a different context, viewed from a different perspective. That is exactly how things are in real life. We don't live our lives or our relationships in linear narratives like novels. They're more like shifting mosaics or kaleidoscopes, always falling into new patterns, continually being recycled with new meanings emerging. The encyclopedia form works magnificently because of this kind of higher psychological realism, but it goes deeper than that, especially in the way the form resists closure. A conventional narrative would have necessarily ended with the man's death, but here he continues to live in these endlessly circulating, self-redefining mini-narratives. In a conventional memoir, it would be painful to go back and read about the couple's past happiness, since you would inevitably read it through a haze of elegiac regret, but in An Encyclopedia of Love that doesn't happen. Each part stands separate, as radiant as a piece in a mosaic, uncontaminated by linear notions of past and future, and so when I read about "him" (he remains unnamed) in the early days of the relationship he stands before me vibrant and cancer-free, his whole life ahead of him. What greater gift could a woman possibly give to a man she has loved and so tragically lost? ... Read more