Author: Julia Prewitt Brown
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1783089792
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
The city, with its manifold distractions and violence, its invitation to intoxication and dream, had long served to represent the experience of modernity in works of art at the time John Schlesinger made his acclaimed urban documentary ‘Terminus’ in 1961. To be a reader of the city was to be a reader of modern life, and Schlesinger was a discriminating, at times relentless, reader of the city throughout his career, especially in his three greatest films, ‘Midnight Cowboy’, ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘The Day of the Locust’, set in New York, London and Los Angeles, respectively. His character-driven stories, evocation of the significance of the everyday, and insistence on ambiguities of situation and motive – all qualities he was known for – point to literary influences that reach back to the nineteenth century and earlier. ‘The Films of John Schlesinger’ is not only the first book to fully acknowledge those influences, but also the first book to explicate the power of his art to capture the modern, urban experiences of becoming an adult in an atmosphere that relentlessly promotes fantasies of success and wealth; of coming to terms with one’s national identity in the context of international politics; and of attempting to transform the past, both personal and cultural, into a viable present.
The Films of John Schlesinger
Author: Julia Prewitt Brown
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1783089792
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
The city, with its manifold distractions and violence, its invitation to intoxication and dream, had long served to represent the experience of modernity in works of art at the time John Schlesinger made his acclaimed urban documentary ‘Terminus’ in 1961. To be a reader of the city was to be a reader of modern life, and Schlesinger was a discriminating, at times relentless, reader of the city throughout his career, especially in his three greatest films, ‘Midnight Cowboy’, ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘The Day of the Locust’, set in New York, London and Los Angeles, respectively. His character-driven stories, evocation of the significance of the everyday, and insistence on ambiguities of situation and motive – all qualities he was known for – point to literary influences that reach back to the nineteenth century and earlier. ‘The Films of John Schlesinger’ is not only the first book to fully acknowledge those influences, but also the first book to explicate the power of his art to capture the modern, urban experiences of becoming an adult in an atmosphere that relentlessly promotes fantasies of success and wealth; of coming to terms with one’s national identity in the context of international politics; and of attempting to transform the past, both personal and cultural, into a viable present.
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1783089792
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
The city, with its manifold distractions and violence, its invitation to intoxication and dream, had long served to represent the experience of modernity in works of art at the time John Schlesinger made his acclaimed urban documentary ‘Terminus’ in 1961. To be a reader of the city was to be a reader of modern life, and Schlesinger was a discriminating, at times relentless, reader of the city throughout his career, especially in his three greatest films, ‘Midnight Cowboy’, ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘The Day of the Locust’, set in New York, London and Los Angeles, respectively. His character-driven stories, evocation of the significance of the everyday, and insistence on ambiguities of situation and motive – all qualities he was known for – point to literary influences that reach back to the nineteenth century and earlier. ‘The Films of John Schlesinger’ is not only the first book to fully acknowledge those influences, but also the first book to explicate the power of his art to capture the modern, urban experiences of becoming an adult in an atmosphere that relentlessly promotes fantasies of success and wealth; of coming to terms with one’s national identity in the context of international politics; and of attempting to transform the past, both personal and cultural, into a viable present.
Conversations with John Schlesinger
Author: Ian Buruma
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307430847
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
“I like the surprise of the curtain going up, revealing what’s behind it.” –John Schlesinger The British director John Schlesinger was one of the cinema’s most dynamic and influential artists. Now, in Conversations with John Schlesinger, acclaimed writer Ian Buruma, Schlesinger’s nephew, reveals the director’s private world in a series of in-depth interviews conducted in the later years of the director’s life. Here they discuss the impact of Schlesinger’s personal life on his art. As his films so readily demonstrate, Schlesinger is a wonderful storyteller, and he serves up fascinating and provocative recollections of growing up in a Jewish family during World War II, his sexual coming-of-age as a gay man in conformist 1950s England, his emergence as an artist in the “Swinging 60s,” and the roller-coaster ride of his career as one of the most prominent Hollywood directors of his time. Schlesinger also discusses his artistic philosophy and approach to filmmaking, recounting stories from the sets of his masterpieces, including Midnight Cowboy; Sunday, Bloody Sunday; Marathon Man; and The Day of the Locust. He shares what it was like to direct such stars as Dustin Hoffman, John Voight, Sean Penn, Madonna, and Julie Christie (whom Schlesinger is credited with discovering) and offers his thoughts on the fickle nature of fame and success in Hollywood. Packed with wit and keen insight into the artistic mind, Conversations with John Schlesinger is not just the candid story of a dynamic and eventful life but the true measure of an extraordinary person.
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307430847
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
“I like the surprise of the curtain going up, revealing what’s behind it.” –John Schlesinger The British director John Schlesinger was one of the cinema’s most dynamic and influential artists. Now, in Conversations with John Schlesinger, acclaimed writer Ian Buruma, Schlesinger’s nephew, reveals the director’s private world in a series of in-depth interviews conducted in the later years of the director’s life. Here they discuss the impact of Schlesinger’s personal life on his art. As his films so readily demonstrate, Schlesinger is a wonderful storyteller, and he serves up fascinating and provocative recollections of growing up in a Jewish family during World War II, his sexual coming-of-age as a gay man in conformist 1950s England, his emergence as an artist in the “Swinging 60s,” and the roller-coaster ride of his career as one of the most prominent Hollywood directors of his time. Schlesinger also discusses his artistic philosophy and approach to filmmaking, recounting stories from the sets of his masterpieces, including Midnight Cowboy; Sunday, Bloody Sunday; Marathon Man; and The Day of the Locust. He shares what it was like to direct such stars as Dustin Hoffman, John Voight, Sean Penn, Madonna, and Julie Christie (whom Schlesinger is credited with discovering) and offers his thoughts on the fickle nature of fame and success in Hollywood. Packed with wit and keen insight into the artistic mind, Conversations with John Schlesinger is not just the candid story of a dynamic and eventful life but the true measure of an extraordinary person.
Shooting Midnight Cowboy
Author: Glenn Frankel
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374719217
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
"Much more than a page-turner. It’s the first essential work of cultural history of the new decade." —Charles Kaiser, The Guardian One of The Washington Post's 50 best nonfiction books of 2021 | A Publishers Weekly best book of 2021 The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and New York Times–bestselling author of the behind-the-scenes explorations of the classic American Westerns High Noon and The Searchers now reveals the history of the controversial 1969 Oscar-winning film that signaled a dramatic shift in American popular culture. Director John Schlesinger’s Darling was nominated for five Academy Awards, and introduced the world to the transcendently talented Julie Christie. Suddenly the toast of Hollywood, Schlesinger used his newfound clout to film an expensive, Panavision adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd. Expectations were huge, making the movie’s complete critical and commercial failure even more devastating, and Schlesinger suddenly found himself persona non grata in the Hollywood circles he had hoped to conquer. Given his recent travails, Schlesinger’s next project seemed doubly daring, bordering on foolish. James Leo Herlihy’s novel Midnight Cowboy, about a Texas hustler trying to survive on the mean streets of 1960’s New York, was dark and transgressive. Perhaps something about the book’s unsparing portrait of cultural alienation resonated with him. His decision to film it began one of the unlikelier convergences in cinematic history, centered around a city that seemed, at first glance, as unwelcoming as Herlihy’s novel itself. Glenn Frankel’s Shooting Midnight Cowboy tells the story of a modern classic that, by all accounts, should never have become one in the first place. The film’s boundary-pushing subject matter—homosexuality, prostitution, sexual assault—earned it an X rating when it first appeared in cinemas in 1969. For Midnight Cowboy, Schlesinger—who had never made a film in the United States—enlisted Jerome Hellman, a producer coming off his own recent flop and smarting from a failed marriage, and Waldo Salt, a formerly blacklisted screenwriter with a tortured past. The decision to shoot on location in New York, at a time when the city was approaching its gritty nadir, backfired when a sanitation strike filled Manhattan with garbage fires and fears of dysentery. Much more than a history of Schlesinger’s film, Shooting Midnight Cowboy is an arresting glimpse into the world from which it emerged: a troubled city that nurtured the talents and ambitions of the pioneering Polish cinematographer Adam Holender and legendary casting director Marion Dougherty, who discovered both Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight and supported them for the roles of “Ratso” Rizzo and Joe Buck—leading to one of the most intensely moving joint performances ever to appear on screen. We follow Herlihy himself as he moves from the experimental confines of Black Mountain College to the theatres of Broadway, influenced by close relationships with Tennessee Williams and Anaïs Nin, and yet unable to find lasting literary success. By turns madcap and serious, and enriched by interviews with Hoffman, Voight, and others, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic is not only the definitive account of the film that unleashed a new wave of innovation in American cinema, but also the story of a country—and an industry—beginning to break free from decades of cultural and sexual repression.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374719217
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
"Much more than a page-turner. It’s the first essential work of cultural history of the new decade." —Charles Kaiser, The Guardian One of The Washington Post's 50 best nonfiction books of 2021 | A Publishers Weekly best book of 2021 The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and New York Times–bestselling author of the behind-the-scenes explorations of the classic American Westerns High Noon and The Searchers now reveals the history of the controversial 1969 Oscar-winning film that signaled a dramatic shift in American popular culture. Director John Schlesinger’s Darling was nominated for five Academy Awards, and introduced the world to the transcendently talented Julie Christie. Suddenly the toast of Hollywood, Schlesinger used his newfound clout to film an expensive, Panavision adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd. Expectations were huge, making the movie’s complete critical and commercial failure even more devastating, and Schlesinger suddenly found himself persona non grata in the Hollywood circles he had hoped to conquer. Given his recent travails, Schlesinger’s next project seemed doubly daring, bordering on foolish. James Leo Herlihy’s novel Midnight Cowboy, about a Texas hustler trying to survive on the mean streets of 1960’s New York, was dark and transgressive. Perhaps something about the book’s unsparing portrait of cultural alienation resonated with him. His decision to film it began one of the unlikelier convergences in cinematic history, centered around a city that seemed, at first glance, as unwelcoming as Herlihy’s novel itself. Glenn Frankel’s Shooting Midnight Cowboy tells the story of a modern classic that, by all accounts, should never have become one in the first place. The film’s boundary-pushing subject matter—homosexuality, prostitution, sexual assault—earned it an X rating when it first appeared in cinemas in 1969. For Midnight Cowboy, Schlesinger—who had never made a film in the United States—enlisted Jerome Hellman, a producer coming off his own recent flop and smarting from a failed marriage, and Waldo Salt, a formerly blacklisted screenwriter with a tortured past. The decision to shoot on location in New York, at a time when the city was approaching its gritty nadir, backfired when a sanitation strike filled Manhattan with garbage fires and fears of dysentery. Much more than a history of Schlesinger’s film, Shooting Midnight Cowboy is an arresting glimpse into the world from which it emerged: a troubled city that nurtured the talents and ambitions of the pioneering Polish cinematographer Adam Holender and legendary casting director Marion Dougherty, who discovered both Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight and supported them for the roles of “Ratso” Rizzo and Joe Buck—leading to one of the most intensely moving joint performances ever to appear on screen. We follow Herlihy himself as he moves from the experimental confines of Black Mountain College to the theatres of Broadway, influenced by close relationships with Tennessee Williams and Anaïs Nin, and yet unable to find lasting literary success. By turns madcap and serious, and enriched by interviews with Hoffman, Voight, and others, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic is not only the definitive account of the film that unleashed a new wave of innovation in American cinema, but also the story of a country—and an industry—beginning to break free from decades of cultural and sexual repression.
Edge of Midnight
Author: William J. Mann
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 9780823084692
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 660
Book Description
Looks at the life and career of the British motion picture director of such films as "Midnight Cowboy" and "Marathon Man."
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 9780823084692
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 660
Book Description
Looks at the life and career of the British motion picture director of such films as "Midnight Cowboy" and "Marathon Man."
Conversations with Directors
Author: Elsie M. Walker
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810861220
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Founded in 1973, the journal Literature/Film Quarterly has featured interviews with some of the most prominent and influential filmmakers from around the world. In Conversations with Directors, the journal's coeditors have assembled an exciting collection of interviews spanning 35 years. Interviewees include directors like Robert Wise, Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, Federico Fellini, William Friedkin, and Robert Altman. Organized chronologically, each interview is preceded by a short introduction that establishes a contemporary context, along with providing the reader with a clear sense of the interview's primary concerns, usefully illuminating the many fascinating, and sometimes surprising, points of connection and difference between the directors.
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810861220
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Founded in 1973, the journal Literature/Film Quarterly has featured interviews with some of the most prominent and influential filmmakers from around the world. In Conversations with Directors, the journal's coeditors have assembled an exciting collection of interviews spanning 35 years. Interviewees include directors like Robert Wise, Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, Federico Fellini, William Friedkin, and Robert Altman. Organized chronologically, each interview is preceded by a short introduction that establishes a contemporary context, along with providing the reader with a clear sense of the interview's primary concerns, usefully illuminating the many fascinating, and sometimes surprising, points of connection and difference between the directors.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Author: Penelope Gilliatt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Book Description
Midnight Cowboy
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
"Dustin Hoffman gives an unforgettable performance as Ratso Rizzo, a scrounging, sleazy small-time con man with big dreams. Jon Voight is magnificent as Joe Buck, the good-looking, naively charming Texan 'cowboy' who is convinced that he is the salvation of many lonely, love starved New York women. These two characters are drawn together in this powerful and compassionate film." [box cover note].
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
"Dustin Hoffman gives an unforgettable performance as Ratso Rizzo, a scrounging, sleazy small-time con man with big dreams. Jon Voight is magnificent as Joe Buck, the good-looking, naively charming Texan 'cowboy' who is convinced that he is the salvation of many lonely, love starved New York women. These two characters are drawn together in this powerful and compassionate film." [box cover note].
Nathanael West and John Schlesinger: "The Day of the Locust" - A Survey of the Translation from Novel to Film
Author: Julia Deitermann
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638546411
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 20
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Augsburg (Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik), course: Proseminar: Novels of the American Modernism, language: English, abstract: Although Nathanael West’s novel The Day of the Locust did not receive much attention when published in 1939, it is today considered one of the best and most revealing novels about Hollywood. Its reviews are outstanding and it has therefore become one of the landmarks in American writing. The Day of the Locust demonstrates the fragility of the American Dream and presents it from various perspectives. It points out the cruel world of film industry using devices of irony and satire. Therefore it resembles a “nightmare vision of humanity destroyed by its obsession with film”. West took the title of the novel from the Bible. In Revelation, people turn into locusts in order to follow their aim of destroying the whole world. They do not kill immediately, though, but only sting and hurt in order to let their victims die slowly. These locusts can be compared to the film industry in Hollywood which also exploits and slowly kills its people. Besides, in the Bible Jeremiah prophesies a necessary ending of the world which ought to lead mankind to a new life and a rebirth. In the novel, this image is taken up again. This aspect will be thoroughly discussed later, though. The concept of apocalypse can be found throughout the novel and beside violence and decadence, the devaluation of love is a prominent theme, too. West illustrates the moral decay of characters on the fringe of the entertainment industry, that are Homer Simpson, Faye Greener and Tod Hackett. Each character has come to California seeking fame or health in the shining city Los Angeles, and each suffers from his or her own history of desperation and shattered dreams. Producers had already thought about turning West’s novel into a film in the early 1950’s. As they feared that most of the satirical view would get lost, however, the film was not shot until 1974, when the famous director John Schlesinger committed himself to the adaptation. [...] This survey focuses on the translation from novel to film, compares and contrasts differences, and reveals the different perspectives of the characters. Furthermore, it will both examine the use of film techniques in Schlesinger’s adaptation and the meaning of symbolism in the film. Last but not least, a few commonly invoked critical viewpoints of the film will be discussed.
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638546411
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 20
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Augsburg (Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik), course: Proseminar: Novels of the American Modernism, language: English, abstract: Although Nathanael West’s novel The Day of the Locust did not receive much attention when published in 1939, it is today considered one of the best and most revealing novels about Hollywood. Its reviews are outstanding and it has therefore become one of the landmarks in American writing. The Day of the Locust demonstrates the fragility of the American Dream and presents it from various perspectives. It points out the cruel world of film industry using devices of irony and satire. Therefore it resembles a “nightmare vision of humanity destroyed by its obsession with film”. West took the title of the novel from the Bible. In Revelation, people turn into locusts in order to follow their aim of destroying the whole world. They do not kill immediately, though, but only sting and hurt in order to let their victims die slowly. These locusts can be compared to the film industry in Hollywood which also exploits and slowly kills its people. Besides, in the Bible Jeremiah prophesies a necessary ending of the world which ought to lead mankind to a new life and a rebirth. In the novel, this image is taken up again. This aspect will be thoroughly discussed later, though. The concept of apocalypse can be found throughout the novel and beside violence and decadence, the devaluation of love is a prominent theme, too. West illustrates the moral decay of characters on the fringe of the entertainment industry, that are Homer Simpson, Faye Greener and Tod Hackett. Each character has come to California seeking fame or health in the shining city Los Angeles, and each suffers from his or her own history of desperation and shattered dreams. Producers had already thought about turning West’s novel into a film in the early 1950’s. As they feared that most of the satirical view would get lost, however, the film was not shot until 1974, when the famous director John Schlesinger committed himself to the adaptation. [...] This survey focuses on the translation from novel to film, compares and contrasts differences, and reveals the different perspectives of the characters. Furthermore, it will both examine the use of film techniques in Schlesinger’s adaptation and the meaning of symbolism in the film. Last but not least, a few commonly invoked critical viewpoints of the film will be discussed.
The Whole Durn Human Comedy
Author: Joseph McBride
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781839983313
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
The Coen Bros. have attracted a wide following and been rewarded with Oscars and other honors, and some of their films are cult favorites and boxoffice hits, such as FARGO, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Yet the team of filmmaking brothers remains misunderstood in some circles. Ethan and Joel Coen deliberately unsettle conventional expectations and raise disturbing questions about human nature while mischievously mixing film genres and styles. Their films display shocking tonal shifts as they blend comedy and drama and, most controversially, comedy and violence. This potent mélange of themes and stylistic approaches makes the Coens' films adventurous, unpredictable probes into contemporary social anxieties; as brilliant satirists they are heirs to Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder. But they resist easy definition and raise the ire of some critics who like films to fit more comfortably into preexisting formats. Film historian and critic Joseph McBride -- author of acclaimed biographies of Frank Capra, John Ford, and Steven Spielberg, along with critical studies of Orson Welles, Ernst Lubitsch, and Wilder -- jousts with the Coens' detractors while defining the filmmakers' freshness and originality. The quirkily individualistic Coens are the kind of personal filmmakers the increasingly conglomerated American cinema rarely fosters anymore, and this critical study illuminates their artistic personalities and contributions.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781839983313
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
The Coen Bros. have attracted a wide following and been rewarded with Oscars and other honors, and some of their films are cult favorites and boxoffice hits, such as FARGO, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Yet the team of filmmaking brothers remains misunderstood in some circles. Ethan and Joel Coen deliberately unsettle conventional expectations and raise disturbing questions about human nature while mischievously mixing film genres and styles. Their films display shocking tonal shifts as they blend comedy and drama and, most controversially, comedy and violence. This potent mélange of themes and stylistic approaches makes the Coens' films adventurous, unpredictable probes into contemporary social anxieties; as brilliant satirists they are heirs to Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder. But they resist easy definition and raise the ire of some critics who like films to fit more comfortably into preexisting formats. Film historian and critic Joseph McBride -- author of acclaimed biographies of Frank Capra, John Ford, and Steven Spielberg, along with critical studies of Orson Welles, Ernst Lubitsch, and Wilder -- jousts with the Coens' detractors while defining the filmmakers' freshness and originality. The quirkily individualistic Coens are the kind of personal filmmakers the increasingly conglomerated American cinema rarely fosters anymore, and this critical study illuminates their artistic personalities and contributions.
Understanding James Leo Herlihy
Author: Robert Ward
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611171997
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 111
Book Description
Understanding James Leo Herlihy is the first book-length study of one of America's most neglected post-war writers. Herlihy (1927-1993), an occasional actor, made his professional mark in life as a playwright and novelist. Herlihy's body of work includes numerous plays, two collections of short stories, and three novels. His best-known novel, Midnight Cowboy, was later adapted into a screenplay by John Schlesinger. It was the only X-rated movie to receive an Academy Award—three, in fact, in 1969: best picture, best director, and best adapted screenplay. In Understanding James Leo Herlihy, Robert Ward examines Herlihy's writing with reference to its historical, cultural, and personal contexts. Ward portrays Herlihy as a product of his environment, influenced by the 1950s and 1960s culture, including the youth rebellion, the erosion of the traditional family, and the increasing sexual liberation. Herlihy's award-winning novels, plays, and short stories display persistent themes of displacement, alienation, and the loss of innocence—all themes that Ward views as parallel to Herlihy's personal life. Through a biographical introduction and a detailed discussion of the major novels, plays, and short stories, Ward details the writer's successful works.
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611171997
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 111
Book Description
Understanding James Leo Herlihy is the first book-length study of one of America's most neglected post-war writers. Herlihy (1927-1993), an occasional actor, made his professional mark in life as a playwright and novelist. Herlihy's body of work includes numerous plays, two collections of short stories, and three novels. His best-known novel, Midnight Cowboy, was later adapted into a screenplay by John Schlesinger. It was the only X-rated movie to receive an Academy Award—three, in fact, in 1969: best picture, best director, and best adapted screenplay. In Understanding James Leo Herlihy, Robert Ward examines Herlihy's writing with reference to its historical, cultural, and personal contexts. Ward portrays Herlihy as a product of his environment, influenced by the 1950s and 1960s culture, including the youth rebellion, the erosion of the traditional family, and the increasing sexual liberation. Herlihy's award-winning novels, plays, and short stories display persistent themes of displacement, alienation, and the loss of innocence—all themes that Ward views as parallel to Herlihy's personal life. Through a biographical introduction and a detailed discussion of the major novels, plays, and short stories, Ward details the writer's successful works.