Motel Chronicles ; Hawk Moon [Paperback]

Sam Shepard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 1985

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.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: Faber Paperbacks (December 31, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571134580
• ISBN-13: 978-0571134588
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,097,514 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sam Shepard was born in 1943 in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He moved to New York from California just as the off-Broadway theatre scene was emerging. He has written more than forty plays, of which elev en have won 'Obie' awards, besides collections of stories, prose writing and screenplays. His plays include Buried Child, The Late Henry Moss, Simpatico, Curse of the Starving Class, True West, Fool for Love, A Lie of the Mind, and States of Shock. His screenplay for Paris, Texas won the Golden Pa lm Award at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival and he directed his own screenplay, Far North, in 1988. 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A travel with a natural born traveller, December 20, 1999

By 

Francisco Miguel Valada - See all my reviews

This review is from: Motel Chronicles (Paperback)

Motel Chronicles is a fine example how aubiographical stories can be well written and it is an excellent trip through real America: the long roads, the Indians, the Cowboys, the desert... Sam Shepard is an excellent playwright and he also writes scripts for movies. It is a surprise for all who are used to his "hard prose" in theatre and in cinema reading the softness of his prose and the almost "delicacy" of these chronicles. After this book, I do recommend you all "Cruising Paradise".

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, August 16, 2002

By 

"deadkerouac" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Motel Chronicles (Paperback)

One of my favorite collections of playwright-actor Sam Shepard (the others being CRUISING PARADISE and HAWK MOON). This is a collection of short stories, poetry, rants, observations, etc., from Shepard's own life. Each section is separated by date and city (though NOT in any particular order, as sections skip from the '70s to the '80s and back again to the '70s); my favorite is "9/24/80, San Francisco, Ca." (in my edition, pp. 43-46), a short story detailing a boy's train ride to his grandparents' home in Chicago, during which he meet a beautiful barefoot girl who looks like Tuesday Weld.

Some of the other stories in this collection formed the basis of Wim Wenders' 1984 film PARIS, TEXAS, which Shepard wrote, and which happens to be one of my all-time favorite films. MOTEL CHRONICLES would be a wonderful introduction to Sam Shepard; I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever wondered about the desert, the road, and America (the beautiful & the ugly).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic story telling., September 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Motel Chronicles (Paperback)

I had always been drawn towards Sam Shepard's plays but this collection of short prose and poetry went one further step for me. The beauty is in the telling of the story, the conjuring of an image and the creation of emotions that almost transport one to the desolate and shifted locations where these scenes take place. I have taken this book with me to many places, have constantly thumbed through it and never fail to find joy in it.