| Abstract |
Other than the publication of his correspondence between himself and Paul Bowles, Ned Rorem has never published the vast correspondence he shared with a sublime mix of people - Leontyne Price, Virgil Thomson, Reynolds Price, Angela Lansbury, Claus Von Bulow, Lou Harrison, Edward Albee, Judy Collins, Frank O'Hara, Alfred Kinsey, Gore Vidal, Cynthia Ozick, and many more. Anyone interested in the arts in America for the last half of the twentieth century will find much to enjoy in this book. Ned Rorem is one of America's greatest composers. In the literary community, Rorem is most famous for his diaries, five volumes of which have been published so far. These diaries combine deep honesty with the often contradictory testimony of everyday life. But if the diaries are documents of self-examination, his letters may be read as texts of self-invention, as he traces the long arc of his creative life by allowing us to join his friends on his daily journey. |
