Understanding Sam Shepard

An ideal introduction into the complex and compelling dramas of the acclaimed playwright

Now available in a paperback edition and featuring a new preface, Understanding Sam Shepard investigates the notoriously complex dramatic world of one of America's most prolific, thoughtful, and challenging contemporary playwrights. During his nearly fifty-year career as a writer, actor, director, and producer, Shepard (1943-2017) consistently focused his work on the ever-changing American cultural landscape. James A. Crank's thorough study offers scholars and students of the dramatist a means of understanding Shephard's frequent experimentation with language, setting, character, and theme. The new preface examines Shepard's legacy and his final work of fiction, Spy of the First Person.

James A. Crank is associate professor of American literature at the University of Alabama, a former National Humanities Center Summer Fellow, and co-host of the podcast "The Sound and the Furious." His other books include Understanding Randall Kenan, New Approaches to Gone with the Wind, and Race and New Modernisms.