When "Memoirs" was first published in 1975, it created quite a bit of turbulence
in the media - though long self-identified as a gay man, Williams' candour abou
t his love life, sexual encounters, and drug use was found shocking in and of it
self, and such revelations by America's greatest living playwright were called "
a raw display of private life" by "The New York Times Book Review". As it turns
out, more than thirty years later, Williams' look back at his life is not quite
so scandalous as it once seemed; he recalls his childhood in Mississippi and St.
Louis, his prolonged struggle as a "starving artist," the "overnight" success o
f "The Glass Menagerie" in 1945, the death of his long-time companion Frank Merl
o in 1962, and his confinement to a psychiatric ward in 1969 and subsequent reco
very from alcohol and drug addiction, all with the same directness, compassion,
and insight that epitomize his plays.
