Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard

Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard

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Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard

Motel Chronicles reveals the fast-moving and sometimes surprising world of the man behind the plays that have made Sam Shepard a live legend in the theater. Shepard chronicles his own life birth in Illinois, childhood memories of Guam, Pasadena and rural Southern California, adventures as ranch hand, waiter, rock musician, dramatist, and film actor. Scenes from this book form the basis of his play Superstitions, and of the film (directed by Wim Wenders) Paris, Texas, winner of the Golden Palm Award at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.

. . .essential reading. A scrapbook of short stories, autobiographical reveries, poetry and photographs, Motel Chronicles is full of verbal delights, as well as insights into its author's entire canon. Whether Mr. Shepard is reminiscing about his parents or daydreaming about cherished movies and cars of his youth, he speaks in pungent and ethereal language that remakes our West. Read in conjunction with the plays, Motel Chronicles also helps demystify the origins of Mr. Shepard's psychological obsessions and desolate frontier iconography. --Frank Rich, New York Times

If plays were put in time capsules, future generations would get a sharp-toothed profile of life in the U.S. in the past decade and half from the works of Sam Shepard. --Time

Sam Shepard is a shaman--a New World shaman. Sam is as American as peyote, magic mushrooms, Rock and Roll, and medicine bundles. --Jack Gelber

Sam Shepard (1943) is a playwright, actor, author, screen writer, and director whose work is performed on and off Broadway and in other theaters across the country. In 1979, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Buried Child. In 1983, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in The Right Stuff. His other famous works include True West, A Lie of the Mind, and Curse of the Starving Class. Fool For Love & the Sad Lament of Pecos Bill by Sam Shepard was also published by City Lights Publishers.


Sam Shepard is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of more than forty-five plays. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven, and he has also written the story collection Cruising Paradise, two collections of prose pieces, Motel Chronicles and Hawk Moon, and Rolling Thunder Logbook, a diary of Bob Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Review tour. As an actor he has appeared in more than thirty films, and he received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for his performance in The Right Stuff. His screenplay for Paris, Texas won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, and he wrote and directed the film Far North in 1988. Shepard's plays, eleven of which have won Obie Awards, include Buried Child, The Late Henry Moss, Simpatico, Curse of the Starving Class, True West, Fool for Love, and A Lie of the Mind, which won a New York Drama Desk Award. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Shepard received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992, and in 1994 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780571134588
ISBN 10 0571134580
Title Motel Chronicles
Author Sam Shepard
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Faber & Faber
Year published 1985-02-18
Number of pages 188
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note Unavailable