Timebends: A Life

by Arthur Miller

Overview

The definitive memoir of Arthur Miller—the famous playwright of The Crucible, All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge, and other plays—Timebends reveals Miller’s incredible trajectory as a man and a writer.

Born in 1915, Miller grew up in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, developed leftist political convictions during the Great Depression, achieved moral victory against McCarthyism in the 1950s, and became president of PEN International near the end of his life, fighting for writers’ freedom of expression. Along the way, his prolific output established him as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century—he wrote twenty-two plays, various screenplays, short stories, and essays, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for Death of a Salesmanand the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1947 for All My Sons. Miller also wrote the screenplay for The Misfits, Marilyn Monroe’s final film.

This memoir also reveals the incredible host of notables that populated his life, including Marilyn Monroe, Elia Kazan, Clark Gable, Sir Laurence Olivier, John F. Kennedy, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Leaving behind a formidable reputation in the worlds of theater, cinema, and politics, Arthur Miller died in 2005 but his memoir continues his legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802146144
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	07/09/2013
Pages:	656
Sales rank:	577,138
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) was born in New York City and studied at the University of Michigan. His plays include All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), A View from the Bridge, A Memory of Two Mondays (1955), After the Fall (1963), Incident at Vichy (1964), The Price (1968), The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972) and The American Clock (1980). He also wrote two novels, Focus (1945) and The Misfits, which was filmed in 1960, and the text for In Russia (1969), Chinese Encounters (1979), and In the Country (1977), three books of photographs by his wife, Inge Morath. His later work included a memoir, Timebends (1987); the plays The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), The Last Yankee (1993), Broken Glass (1994), and Mr. Peter's Connections (1999); Echoes Down the Corridor: Collected Essays, 1944–2000; and On Politics and the Art of Acting (2001). He twice won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and in 1949 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Miller was the recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 2001 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003.

Editorial Reviews

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. (November 16)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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.

Library Journal