Timebends: A Life

Very few have written of their lives with the depth, humor, candor, and boldness of the best of their work. In Timebends, Arthur Miller, phenomenally successful playwright, has triumphantly done just that.

America's most famous living playwright (All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, Incident at Vichy, etc.) here does with his life story what nature does with rock strata, folding it back on itself to achieve the effects of many-layered richness and simultaneity that he aims for in his plays. It's a life as remarkable for its commitment as its achievement. Growing up on the edge of Harlem in the '20s and '30s, the son of a successful but semiliterate coat manufacturer, Miller discovered both his vocation and his leftist political convictions during the Depression and the rise of fascism. He achieved a moral victory against McCarthyism in the '50s; and it was under his presidency that PEN went from an ineffectual literary club to a real force for international freedom of expression. While covering these events, Miller traces the genesis of his plays in his life experience, provides vivid portraits of a host of notables in the worlds of theater, cinema and politics, including Elia Kazan, Lee and Paula Strasberg, John Huston, Clark Gable, Sir Laurence Olivier, John F. Kennedy and Mikhail Gorbachev, and a detailed, deeply touching one of his second wife, Marilyn Monroe, who finally slipped from his reach. Tough, compassionate, bristling with intelligence and profound reflections on the dramas of life and stage, this is one of the memorable autobiographies of our time. Photos. BOMC selection.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Renowned playwright Miller has at last written his autobiography in this dense, thoughtful, beautifully written book. With sharp characterizations and vivid imagery, Miller brings his Brooklyn childhood to life. His early struggles and successes in the theater are all here, as well as his skirmishes with the House Un-American Activities Committee and, of course, his much-publicized marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Miller delves deep inside his relationship with Monroe to analyze and intellectualize the problems of their marriage. He sees her as the quintessential orphan, whom no amount of reassurance could make secure. A fascinating, important book for most libraries. Marcia L. Perry, Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Mass.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.