THIS IS the third and only true biography published since the playwright's death on 24 February 1983. A chronological month-by-month account of his 71 years, identifying each story or play he wrote, it is indispensable as a reference, slow for casual reading. The jacket blurb promises a portrait of 'a man more disturbing, more dramatic, richer, and more wonderful than any character he ever created'. True. But Tennessee Williams was also a very funny man. His wit and humour are what this book lacks, to come alive. This is not an 'official' biography. Spoto did not have the sanction of Williams's trustee, Lady Maria St. Just of London, so had no access to papers owned by the estate. He did not know Williams personally. The biography Tennessee himself authorized is being written by his friend, Lyle Leverich, to whom he furnished journals, his unpublished memoirs, family papers and correspondence, and the first volume will be published this year. Although Spoto did use the Williams manuscript collection at the University of Texas, he largely depended on previous publications, interviews, and, too often, hearsay. A respected film biographer, Spoto wrote this book in little over a year with the help of 26 students at the New School for Social Research. Sometimes the haste shows in a failure to double-check facts. For example, he says that Williams's first play was produced at the University of Missouri in 1932 when he was 21; correctly, it was in Memphis in 1935. He attributes Williams's inspiration to become a playwright to seeing Alia Nazimova in Ghosts on campus in 1931, and from that extrapolates the major influence of Ibsen. Actually Williams saw Ghosts at the American Theater in St. Louis in 1936 after he had already written several plays. He encountered Ibsen in a Modern Drama course at Iowa in 1937 (influence? Tom's grade was D). Regarding Tom's undergraduate years I found ten such errors in three pages. There are some discoveries: Williams was more of a 'social' writer than is realized. He wrote 'living newspaper' and agitprop drama in the 'thirties, protests against Vietnam in the 'seventies. In the McCarthy witch-hunt of the 'fifties Camino Real was denounced as anti-American. Spoto is the first to catalogue the virtually unknown work of the 'seventies, but his descriptions are usually negative and his one-to-one interpretations linking the playwright to each play are too simple. One feels that he does not really approve of his subject. 'We must face the fact', he moralizes, that Williams could be generous and mean, compassionate and ruthless, honest in writing, in life a dissembler.
