Stephen Sondheim: A Life - Hardcover

Secrest, Meryle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747535353 ISBN 13: 9780747535355

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1998

Synopsis

Drawing on conversations with Sondheim and his friends and family, this biography of the famous composer and lyricist traces his life from his childhood and early musical ambitions to his ascent to Broadway with such musicals as "West Side Story", "Gypsy" and "Company".

About this title

Review:

America's foremost musical-theatre composer also proves to be a fascinatingly complex and conflicted human being in this meticulous biography by the always capable Meryle Secrest (Being Bernard Berenson, Leonard Bernstein etc). Stephen Sondheim himself was interviewed for the book, as were many of his closest friends, and the author makes perceptive use of this material. Born in 1930, Sondheim was a successful Broadway lyricist (West Side Story and Gypsy) before he was 30. But the scars from a miserable childhood remained: he was inclined to be distant, hypercritical of those less intelligent than he and terrified of serious emotional commitment. Critics sometimes found those qualities in the series of groundbreaking musicals he created with director Hal Prince-- Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd, to name but four--but they agreed that he brought new intellectual ambition and artistic adventurousness to the musical theater. Secrest does a fine job of delineating Sondheim's career in terms of what it tells us about the state of American theater, as when he shifted to a partnership with writer-director James Lapine and worked in the non-profit sector for such musicals as Sunday in the Park with George and Assassins. She also does well in selecting revealing quotes to depict the composer's struggle to accept his homosexuality and a rage at his overbearing mother so deep that he didn't even attend her funeral. Sondheim the man and Sondheim the visionary artist get nearly equal time in an intriguing portrait.

Review:

"A great read, magnificently reported and full of insights." --USA Today

"An indispensable book." --The Wall Street Journal

"Intriguing. . . . An evenhanded portrait of a sensitive but essentially solitary man." --The New York Times

"Memorable. . . . Secrest's biography of Sondheim brilliantly captures the uncertainties of a life in the theater." --People

"Even walking Sondheim encyclopedias will find news here. Secrest spent hours interviewing Sondheim, and he talked with unprecedented candor about his homosexuality, his unhappy childhood and his 'snappish intolerance' of others." --Newsweek

"Admirable. . . . [Secrest] is clearly a tireless researcher and marathon interviewer. . . . Those with and those without a special interest in the musical theater are kept happy." --The New York Times Book Review

"Impressively researched, eminently readable. . . . [Secrest] does a remarkable job of integrating the life and the work. The result is a portrait of a brilliant, deeply sensitive man." --Philadelphia Inquirer

"Definitive. . . . Secrest has connected Sondheim the human being with Sondheim the genius." --Houston Chronicle

"Fascinating. . . . Secrest's book on Sondheim is so fascinating that anyone can enjoy it." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A must-read for anyone interested in the musical theater. . . . In Stephen Sondheim: A Life, Meryle Secrest sheds some light on the complex sensibility that grew out of a golden yet emotionally ragged childhood." --New York

"What distinguishes Secrest's work is her access to the very private, vulnerable and sometimes quite prickly composer himself, and through that, the first detailed study of his complex personal life." --Chicago Tribune

"Meticulously researched. . . . A bonanza." --The Denver Post

"Superb. . . . Garners our trust, seducing us into a delicious and uncommonly erudite show-biz read." --Newsday

"A portrait of a complicated, contradictory and compelling artist. . . . Secrest does much to illuminate some of the darker corners of Sondheim's life, as well as to describe his long years in the spotlight." --The Miami Herald

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0747535353
• ISBN 13: 9780747535355
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448