It's a Slippery Slope [Paperback]

Spalding Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1997

Within a year, the familiar boundaries of Spalding Gray's existence have been altered by betrayal, love, lust and loss. He suddenly marries his longtime companion, and divorces her just as quickly; he moves in with his girlfriend, Kathie, who bears him a son; and he learns, against all odds, to ski. But not even his mastery of the much-feared right turn can prepare him for the exhilarating experience of fatherhood. A brilliant improvisation with as many twists and turns as a double-diamond course, It's a Slippery Slope explores how one man survives a mid-life crisis by finding his balance on skis.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Master monologist Spalding Gray is feeling like he's on the downhill side of life. For those who have followed his beautifully observed stories of his rather chaotic life through Swimming to Cambodia, Gray's Anatomy, and Monster in a Box, this latest episode has Gray dealing with his breakup with long-suffering girlfriend Renee and his sudden fathering of a child with a new woman. Along the way Gray ponders, in patented Gray style, what this means about his own aging, whether he's now living his life to provide material for his monologues, and how much it all resembles the peculiar plummeting rapture of a ski slope.

From Library Journal

Gray is our premier monologist, best known for Swimming to Cambodia (Theatre Communications, 1988) and Gray's Anatomy (Vintage, 1994). He is to drama what the confessional poet is to poetry; but his writing is much more precise than most confessional poets, and he has a liberating sense of amused bemusement about himself too often lacking in most modern poetry. Though not a play exactly (the author is writing deep autobiography here and then performing it himself on stage), this piece does have a three-act play structure. The outer two units are about the exterior life and learning to ski and to love its freedom and risk, hence "slippery slope." The center of the piece is also about freedom and risk, but it is inner and personal in an honest and painful way, chronicling marriage, divorce, and fatherhood. Gray has a gift for being directly in touch with his subconscious, with little censor function to cloud his vision. The hilarity and joyousness of the beginning and end is exactly countered by the seriousness and terror of the middle. Highly recommended.?Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (September 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374525234
• ISBN-13: 978-0374525231
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #673,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I didn't read it, but I just saw him perform it!, April 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: It's a Slippery Slope (Paperback)

Each adventure with Spalding is a little different. But the issues always remain the same, Spalding is an intensely neurotic individual with an over developed fear of death. But that is why we love him. It is not always what he says, but more how he says it. After seeing Spalding perform his monologue live I have four things to do; make a mental note to see him perform at any chance, rewatch his videos, read some of his books, and start keeping a journal.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars slip sliding away, October 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: It's a Slippery Slope (Paperback)

Save no ones sanity, master monologist Spalding Gray is at it again. This time delivering the most neurotic and insightful commentary on the subject of the mid-life crisis. Finding the perfect balance between career and personal life is metaphoricly shown to us through the eyes of a man learning to ski for the first time. Gray is a maestro of the "first person" leading the reader up and down the rocky sloaps of the novel. At the end of the perfect run, Gray only slips in his sementality. Finding the perfect balance has only made his bitting humor about the subject a bit soggy.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Going Down, January 17, 2000

By 

valerie d. maione (long island,new york..quite close to spalding himself) - See all my reviews

This review is from: It's a Slippery Slope (Paperback)

As usual Spalding Gray has done it again.Very entertaining and witted.Just love the audio too, can never get enough of Spalding.I highly recommend all his works.