"The lady opened her eyes then and looked up at me, and said, 'Seven hundred and fifty dollars is a fortune to me. A fortune.' 'Yes, ma'am,' I said, and I wished she would get off the subject. I felt guilty enough about my daddy spending the money without her going on about it." This conversation about acting school tuition, between the author and a woman on a bus during the depression, is emblematic of the tone of this memoir and the bulk of Foote's dramatic work (which concern both the conflicting worlds of his quiet Texas hometown and boisterous 1930s New York). The author of The Trip to Bountiful
and scenarist for To Kill a Mockingbird,
winner of two Academy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, has penned a nostalgic record of his early career, picking up where his earlier memoir, Farewell
(1999), left off. Foote has a gentle way with words and emotions, and while his early days at Pasadena Playhouse were difficult—he had to lose his strong Texas accent to even be considered for roles, and dealt with family tragedies (e.g., an uncle's suicide) and near-fatal appendicitis—the tenor and temper of his writing is always calming. After moving to New York in 1935, Foote continued acting, but also took up writing at the suggestion of Agnes de Mille and launched a new career as a playwright. Foote's portrayal of the New York theater and arts scene in the mid-1930s is fascinating—he met or knew everyone from Lynn Riggs (who wrote the play upon which Oklahoma
was based) to Tennessee Williams—and the book ends after he meets his future wife, Lillian Vallish. Often scanty in details or world-shaking insights, Foote's chronicle is still as charming as his plays and will be welcomed by his fans. (Nov.)
