Gray's Anatomy (Vintage) [Paperback]

Spalding Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 23, 1993 | Series: Vintage

In middle age Spalding Gray has entered "the Bermuda Triangle of Health," that place where the body begins to break down in alarming and humiliating ways. His immediate problem is an eye complaint that could be corrected with minor surgery. But for the high priest of high anxiety, nothing is ever minor. And so Gray embarks on a crazed crusade for wellness that takes him from a Native American sweat lodge to a dictatorial nutritionist and, finally, to a gory session with the "Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons" in the Far East.

Exquisitely timed, unfettered in its intelligence, and funny enough to push readers to the brink of cardiac arrest, Gray's Anatomy is a surreal tour de force of body and soul.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Anyone who can imagine monologuist Gray's voice--ironic, neurotic, bemused by the world--will enjoy this new performance piece. In previous monologues, such as Swimming to Cambodia , Gray raided his own life, but this digs deeper, exploring his terror and tactics after finding he has a serious eye problem. He careens from a superconfident doctor who calls him "Gary Spalding" to reminiscences of his Christian Science boyhood to his "existential realist" therapist. Then the wildness begins. A shabbily dressed Spalding, mistaken for a bum, is schlepped out to Williamsburg by some Hasidic Jews to clean their synagogue. Seeking alternative cures, he goes to a Minnesota sweat lodge to conjure up his ancestors--and remembers that his ancestors killed Indians. He visits folk healers, notably a New Jersey man whose colorful house is like "Howard Finster's dream," and the "Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons," a Filipino who does rapid-fire groping in patients' innards. There's a happy ending: a successful operation and Gray's marriage to long-time helpmate Renee. Confronting corporeal and spiritual anxiety, Gray is always entertaining, and sometimes hilarious.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Gray has turned his trademark navel-gazing into looking himself in the eye -- literally...A witty tour through the world of alternative medicine and his own anxieties." -- Washington Post

"One of the funniest travelogues of the human landscape [Gray] has yet spun out...As close as he has ever been to becoming a stand-up comedian. God bless him for it." -- Chicago Tribune

"Spalding Gray may be the nation's most outstanding storyteller. Nothing eludes his eye or the sureness of his satire. The secret of his success is the skewed angle of vision -- his eccentric wit and ruthless candor." -- Los Angeles Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1 edition (November 23, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679751785
• ISBN-13: 978-0679751786
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #895,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars hilarious, February 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Gray's Anatomy (Vintage) (Paperback)

Spalding Gray, at his best, is the funniest obsessive-compulsive neurotic whiner you'll ever encounter. "Gray's Anatomy" is one of his more hilarious pieces. he delves less into his childhood traumas and more into the insanity and inanity of growing older in America, and the result is first rate.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Heart is Popping, December 13, 2006

By 

Aco - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gray's Anatomy (Vintage) (Paperback)

To be able to see this maverick original perform live would have been a treat. Sadly he is no longer alive, and that is a shame for the theatrical, cinematic and literate world.
I have known about Gray for years now, but had never read his work until Gray's Anatomy, which I took from the library.
What a fun and easy read it proved to be.
While his neurosis is full blast, it is endearing still, unlike Larry David for example, who manages to turn his neurosis and self-obsession into one part revulsion and one part humor. Gray is one part humor and one part wisdom.
Gray's Anatomy is a tale of his experiences-perhaps real, perhaps fabricated-in searching for a cure for a macula pucker, damage to the eye where vitreous (the jelly in an eye) "has broken down, dissolved, liquefied, due to trauma or age-we don't know yet-and it's pulled away from the retina and left a little piece of skin or edema on the macula-the macula being the center of the retina, which is responsible for all detail in sight." Such detail is interesting, frightening and even ironic. Such is the substance of many of his adventures in health, as he travels several continents...
But I come back to an endearing, thankful feeling in Gray's story. I can imagine that his performance, while simple and/or minimal become the lectures of an "absent minded professor," or a friend on a passionate tear.
I have already sought out his other writings, and his filmed versions.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars in good condition, but delivery took longer than expected, January 7, 2010

By 

sherylast - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gray's Anatomy (Vintage) (Paperback)

The book was in fine condition (as advertised), but it took over a week and a half from shipping date.