Brighton Beach Memoirs - Softcover

Simon, Neil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452275288 ISBN 13: 9780452275287

Publisher: Plume, 1995

Synopsis

A young boy from Brooklyn comes of age in the first play in Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical “Eugene Trilogy”—followed by Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound.

Meet Eugene Jerome and his family, fighting the hard times and sometimes each other—with laughter, tears, and love. It is 1937 in Brooklyn during the heart of the Depression. Fifteen-year-old Eugene Jerome lives in Brighton Beach with his family. He is witty, perceptive, obsessed with sex, and forever fantasizing his baseball-diamond triumphs as star pitcher for the New York Yankees.

As our guide through his “memoirs,” Eugene takes us through a series of trenchant observations and insights that show his family meeting life's challenges with pride, spirit, and a marvelous sense of humor. But as World War II looms ever closer, Eugene sees his own innocence slipping away as the first important era of his life ends—and a new one begins.

Winner of the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play

About this title

From the Inside Flap

In Neil Simon's darkly funny memoir of his family in 1930's Brooklyn, fourteen-year-old Eugene is preoccupied by his passion for the Yankees and his lust for his beautiful cousin, Nora. Eugene's comic growing pains contrast with the darker issues troubling his family: poverty, illness and the growing Nazi threat to relatives in Europe. Simon creates a Brooklyn universe full of memorable characters, humor and truth. A BBC co-production.

About the Author

Since 1960, a Broadway season without a Neil Simon comedy or musical has been a rare one. His first play was Come Blow Your Horn, followed by the musical Little Me. During the 1966-67 season, Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Sweet Charity, and The Star-Spangled Girl were all running simultaneously; in the 1970-71 season, Broadway theatergoers had their choice of Plaza Suite, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, and Promises, Promises. Next came The Gingerbread Lady, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Sunshine Boys, The Good Doctor, God's Favorite, California Suite, Chapter Two, the musical They're Playing Our Song, I Ought to Be in Pictures, Brighton Beach Memoirs (which won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of 1983), Biloxi Blues (which won the Tony Award for Best Play of 1985), and the female version of The Odd Couple.

Mr. Simon began his writing career in television, writing The Phil Silvers Show and Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows. He also wrote the screen adaptations of Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Sunshine Boys, California Suite, Chapter Two, and I Ought to Be in Pictures. His original screenplays include The Out-of-Towners, The Heartbreak Kid, Murder by Death, The Goodbye Girl, The Cheap Detective, Seems Like Old Times, Only When I Laugh, Max Dugan Returns, and The Slugger's Wife. He received the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for Lost in Yonkers. He died in 2018.

Edition details

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0452275288
• ISBN 13: 9780452275287
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 144