Morning, Noon and Night [Paperback]

Spalding Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2000

A hilarious monologue about fatherhood by a unique comic voice

In Morning, Noon and Night that master of the confessional, Spalding Gray, tells the event-filled, emotionally charged, and outrageously funny story of one day of his life in October 1997, after the birth of his son Theo. Horrified by the prospect of having another son, considering what he and his two brothers did to their father, and ambivalent about the idea of living in a small, quaint town on eastern Long Island that seems an odd detour for a man destined for California, Gray comes to feel, of course, a profound affinity for his baby boy, born with the looks of a "wet, blue beaver." But this is not merely a father's account of an infant son; it's the story of his new life with his girlfriend Kathie; his regally precocious eleven-year-old stepdaughter, Marissa ("Please don't let me die a virgin!"); and his older son, Forrest, who stymies Gray time and again with his metaphysical inquisitiveness-"Daddy, what's behind the stars?" "How do flies celebrate?"

A richly comic work about parenthood, about adults who don't grow up and children who do, Morning, Noon and Night stands as Gray's most mature work to date.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A portrait of the artist as bemused dad, this account of a day in the life of the Gray family is by turns funny, meditative and self-absorbed. Gray (Swimming to Cambodia, etc.) may say he is "really no good at making up stories," but he is brilliant at telling them. Parents will smile with recognition at his tales of sharing the bath with plastic action figures; of trying to control his anger at the children's rejection of a dinner lovingly prepared by his wife, Kathie, in favor of "Lunchables"; and at the stream of existential questions posed by his son, Forrest ("Dad, how do flies celebrate?"). With the birth of his second son, Theo, Gray's recollection of how he and his brothers treated their own father is sharpened, providing a frame of family history for his present encounters with parenthood. The 18th-century churchyard across from Gray's suburban Long Island home inspires his sometimes morbid imagination, but his frequent flights of fantasy are always brought down to earth by the real demands of young children or the common sense of the apparently endlessly patient Kathie. In his stepdaughter, Marissa, Gray seems to have met his match for self-dramatization: "We both thought that life was a rehearsal for the perfect story and the perfect audience." Gray's own words about a woman who exposes her toeless foot for alms on a New York subwayAthat her story "was no doubt partly an act, but was a good act and it deserved some money"Acould equally be applied to his own work. Agent, ICM. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Somewhere about the time Gray admits that he cried the first time he heard his son's schoolmates sing the Sag Harbor Elementary School Song you want to haul off and jack-slap the noted monologist upside the head and scream, "Hey, Spalding, bite me!" Gray has made a career of his droning, therapy-laden confessional soliloquies; this latest installment finds him trading his Manhattan loft for an 1890s whaler's house on Long Island (where he lives with his girlfriend and their three children). Here he subjects readers to inane ramblings about one day in October 1997 just after the birth of his son, Theo. The yoga, bicycle rides, and new green Volvo station wagon all have a quickly numbing effect. By the last page, when the baby is breast-feeding at the end of a long day, you know that it's not just Theo that sucks. Proof that old performance artists don't die, they move to Sag Harbor and become yuppies.
-ABarry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (September 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374527210
• ISBN-13: 978-0374527211
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,274,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Morbidly compelling, March 23, 2004

By 

"jfizia" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Morning, Noon and Night (Hardcover)

I stumbled upon a discount copy of Spalding Gray's Morning, Noon and Night and was morbidly compelled to read it. Basically, he recounts a day in his life when his youngest son was still an infant.

Other of his works are better written and with sharper wit and insight, and to plod through this one - to get it - you have to hear Spalding tell it in your head, see his expressions and mannerisms.

This memoir is something of a reflection on parenthood, and, well, everything, in true Spalding fashion. The book is full of sentiments that everyone confronting parenthood can relate to. I found myself angry at him for saying some of it though (OK, so I'm not finished with my anger just yet). Toward the end he writes:

"Here it is only ten-fifteen in the evening and I'm wasted, and I didn't even go to work. I don't know how people do it. I don't know how people raise families and work at the same time. What's more, why would they want to do it? With only one life to live, why bring more life into the world to be responsible for? It's absurd. It's ridiculous, I think. Why complicate your life with more life that you are ultimately responsible for? I love my children, but they could only be accidents born out of a kind of blind passion. I could never have had a child if I had to think about it."

Although he didn't go to work, he didn't do much parenting either. His girlfriend, working from a home office, also cooked, managed the household renovations, tended to the baby. He was selfish and spoiled - yoga, bike-ride, drinking.

But in the light of his death this work also sketches a portrait of a very sad, confused, scared - desperately scared - childish man. (Lots of inky water imagery too.) The humour and the wonder had already started leaving him.

http://magnificentoctopus.blogspot.com

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's still Spalding, October 26, 1999

By 

J. Rockwell "mail me at: [e-mail]" (Moreno Valley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Morning, Noon and Night (Hardcover)

I had the opportunity to see this work performed by Spalding Gray at UCLA and I must say that some of the grit and edge in Gray's earlier monologues was no longer present.

However, I am always amazed at Gray's ability to tell simple stories and I remain in awe at his facile use of language and description.

A true artist evolves over time, so even if I don't enjoy the kinder, gentler Spalding as much, I must still respect him for for what he is--one of the greatest monologue-ists out there...

5.0 out of 5 stars kind of magic, August 4, 2006

By 

Greenwich St. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Morning, Noon and Night (Paperback)

As an aging hipster and middle-aged mother of a young child I could easily identify with the subject of this book, which is, roughly, about settling down to the family life and enjoying its blessings despite all expections. But more than that, I was moved by the grace, directness and humor of the writing. Gray's unique sensibility is so disarmingly present in this short meditation that our restrospective awareness of his death makes the reading quite painful. Still, a wonderful little package of feeling and intelligence that deftly explores the ambivalent joys of belonging to family.