Life Interrupted: The Unfinished Monologue (Hardcover)

by Spalding Gray (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Perhaps best known for his first theatrical monologue, 1985's Swimming to Cambodia (which later became a surprisingly successful film, directed by Jonathan Demme), Gray followed Cambodia with many more autobiographical performances, including Monster in a Box and Slippery Slope (and many film appearances) until his suicide at age 62 in spring 2004. A traumatic automobile accident in 2001 had left him severely depressed;this, and the hospital stay that followed, is the subject of the unfinished monologue that makes up only a short part of this memorial volume. Introduced by novelist Francine Prose in a graceful essay citing Gray's "unlikely and hilarious pilgrim's progress," the book includes short eulogies by some of Gray's many friends in memorial services at Lincoln Center and in Sag Harbor, his home. Many are from figures in the world of books and publishing;his agent, Suzanne Gluck; novelist A.M. Homes; essayist Roger Rosenblatt;others from show biz, like Laurie Anderson, John Perry Barlow, Eric Bogosian, Eric Stoltz and many more. This is an unusual book to put out as a trade edition and indicates the affection and esteem Gray commanded. (Oct.)
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From Booklist
Gray turned every odd twist and turn of his life into material for his famous, influential monologues. His experiences on the set of The Killing Fields became Swimming to Cambodia. His attempts to buy a vacation home became Monster in a Box. It seems oddly natural, if vaguely unsettling, that, a year after his suicide, a new piece entitled Life Interrupted should appear. It doesn't chronicle Gray's wild afterlife, however, but is instead a brief recounting of experiences immediately before and after a life-threatening automobile accident in Ireland in summer 2001. Of course, Gray would have added to the monologue in performance; that was his practice. Still, as is, this compact story is witty, insightful, fascinating, and free of the wounded, annoying narcissism that crept into many of his recent pieces. Published with it here are a poignant short story and a fine portrait of New York City, as well as eulogies delivered at memorial services by such notables as Laurie Anderson and John Perry Barlow. Jack Helbig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Crown (October 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400048613
• ISBN-13: 978-1400048618
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #253,758 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's really only 56 pages., November 8, 2005

By	AJ - See all my reviews

When I saw that it was 256 pages I thought it was all going to be stuff that Spalding Gray had written. I was really excited to get this book, thinking that I'd have at least a few days worth of reading to do. Unfortunately only 56 of those 256 pages are actually his work. The forward by Francine Prose goes from pg 17-49. "Life Interrupted" goes from pgs 53-92 (40 pages). "The Anniversary" goes from pgs 95-109 (15 pages). "Dear New York City" is pg 113. The rest of the book, pgs 121-255, are eulogies. I would have preferred to just get a skinny little 56 page book of only his work. I realize that this book in essence was to be a dedication to Spalding Gray's life and last days. A way for his friends and family to celebrate his existance in their lives and say goodbye to him. It is a good book and well worth the money, but I would have preferred to just get his writings sans wordy forward and eulogies.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spalding Gray's parting monologue., October 24, 2005

By	G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"If you had to reduce all of Spalding's work to its essence, its core," Francine Prose writes in her Foreward to Gray's last major monologue, "if you wanted to locate the subject to which, no matter what else he talked about, he kept returning, I suppose you could say that his work was a profoundly metaphysical inquiry into how we manage to live despite the knowledge we are someday going to die. How are we to love the world and the people we care about most even when we know that someday we will lose it all and our loved ones will have to continue without us" (pp. 43-44)?

Perhaps best known for SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA (1988) and GRAY'S ANATOMY (1994), Spalding Gray committed suicide last year at the age of 62, leaving behind his wife, Kathleen Russo, a stepdaughter, Marissa, and two sons, Forrest and Theo. In his unfinished work in progress, LIFE INTERRUPTED, Gray tells of his trip to Ireland to celebrate his 60th birthday, which ended with a gruesome car crash leaving him severely injured and depressed. That incident not only became the catalyst for Gray's return to writing from his "quiet life" of domestic bliss in Sag Harbor, but the turning point in his life, ultimately leading to suicide. From the transvestite with green fingernails offering him toast and tea (p. 67-68), to his Pakastani doctors, to his attempts to try to get along with the blaring televisions (p. 71), to his musings on how an intelligent country like America could "elect such a dud like George Bush" (p. 80), Gray finds never-ending humor in his grim predicament, while recovering from his injuries in an Irish country hospital. Spalding Gray's parting monologue offers such sweet sorrow.

The book concludes with several short eulogies by Gray's friends (Laurie Anderson, John Perry Barlow, Eric Bogosian, Eric Stoltz and many more), delivered in memorial services at Lincoln Center and in Sag Harbor.

G. Merritt

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spalding gives us something to think about, and departs., August 18, 2006

By	T. Porges (Washington DC, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A celebrity is someone whom you've never actually met, but think you know; not just know about, but know. The celebrity press offers us little bits of enticing, patently untrue information about these imaginary friends every day. Part of our agreement with the idea of celebrity is that we believe these things while knowing (after all, we're not crazy) that they aren't true.

It was easy to slip into thinking of Spalding Gray, who after all never pretended to be anything but an actor and a sort of amateur writer, as a celebrity. Since his confessional monologues included much that was embarrassing and painful, it was easier that way. Apparently, though, every word of it was true. His sadness, his eerily prophetic but still crippling fears, his inability, like so many children of suicides, to get on with his life -- it was all there. It was all, or at least mostly true, and we really knew him after all, and the guilt at not having been able to save him, at having been not an imaginary friend but a real one, and not a very good one, is real as well.

His monologues were surprisingly layered, nuanced and durable works of art, considering he never claimed much for himself as a writer. They are like Chekhov plays without villains -- not so dark, or so funny, and a bit sweeter than you'd like, maybe, but still great, and this is the last of them.