Gray's Anatomy

by Spalding Gray

Overview

In middle age Spalding Gray has entered "the Bermuda Triangle of Health," that place where the body begins to break down in alarming and humiliating ways. His immediate problem is an eye complaint that could be corrected with minor surgery. But for the high priest of high anxiety, nothing is ever minor. And so Gray embarks on a crazed crusade for wellness that takes him from a Native American sweat lodge to a dictatorial nutritionist and, finally, to a gory session with the "Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons" in the Far East.

Exquisitely timed, unfettered in its intelligence, and funny enough to push readers to the brink of cardiac arrest, Gray's Anatomy is a surreal tour de force of body and soul.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679751786
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/23/1993
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

Spalding Gray was born and raised in Rhode Island. A cofounder of the acclaimed New York City theater company the Wooster Group, he appeared on Broadway and in numerous films, including Roland Joffé’s The Killing Fields, David Byrne’s True Stories, Garry Marshall’s Beaches, and as the subject of the 2010 Steven Soderbergh documentary, And Everything is Going Fine. His monologues include Sex and Death to the Age 14, Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box, Gray’s Anatomy, and It’s a Slippery Slope. He died in 2004.

Editorial Reviews

"Gray has turned his trademark navel-gazing into looking himself in the eye — literally...A witty tour through the world of alternative medicine and his own anxieties." — Washington Post

"One of the funniest travelogues of the human landscape [Gray] has yet spun out...As close as he has ever been to becoming a stand-up comedian. God bless him for it." — Chicago Tribune

"Spalding Gray may be the nation's most outstanding storyteller. Nothing eludes his eye or the sureness of his satire. The secret of his success is the skewed angle of vision — his eccentric wit and ruthless candor." — Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher

Anyone who can imagine monologuist Gray's voice--ironic, neurotic, bemused by the world--will enjoy this new performance piece. In previous monologues, such as Swimming to Cambodia , Gray raided his own life, but this digs deeper, exploring his terror and tactics after finding he has a serious eye problem. He careens from a superconfident doctor who calls him ``Gary Spalding'' to reminiscences of his Christian Science boyhood to his ``existential realist'' therapist. Then the wildness begins. A shabbily dressed Spalding, mistaken for a bum, is schlepped out to Williamsburg by some Hasidic Jews to clean their synagogue. Seeking alternative cures, he goes to a Minnesota sweat lodge to conjure up his ancestors--and remembers that his ancestors killed Indians. He visits folk healers, notably a New Jersey man whose colorful house is like ``Howard Finster's dream,'' and the ``Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons,'' a Filipino who does rapid-fire groping in patients' innards. There's a happy ending: a successful operation and Gray's marriage to long-time helpmate Renee. Confronting corporeal and spiritual anxiety, Gray is always entertaining, and sometimes hilarious. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly