True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times

Greenfield (Mother American Night), a former Rolling Stone editor, delivers a riveting account of the life of playwright and actor Sam Shepard (1943–2017). Shepard, Greenfield suggests, was as a tortured soul who led a charmed life and had a knack for landing in the right place at the right time, starting with Greenwich Village in the early 1960s. The burgeoning writer remained “immune to... the social and political turbulence” of the countercultural ’60s, but was ready for its sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, carving a niche as an experimental playwright and occasional rock drummer. Shepard’s ascent in the New York theater world connected him with acting roles in Hollywood that helped fund his writing and led to a long-term relationship with actor Jessica Lange. Greenfield notes that even as Shepard garnered accolades for his plays and acting, he was tormented by his fraught relationship with his domineering, alcoholic father, a relationship that inspired the unhappy families in his plays. Greenfield doesn’t shy away from the less savory aspects of Shepard’s character, such as the marginalization of women in his work, and the keen attention to Shepard’s psychology makes for an illuminating portrait of a larger-than-life figure. Few readers will leave being unimpressed with Shepard, or this biography. (Apr.)