True West: Sam Shepard's Life, Work, and Times -- Robert Greenfield, Hardcover

A revelatory biography of the world-famous playwright and actor Sam Shepard, whose work was matched by his equally dramatic life, including collaborations with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan as well as tumultuous relationships with Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell, and Jessica Lange

"Robert Greenfield's vivid, clear-eyed biography captures both the man and the myth--and, perhaps most important, the writer, who sang a new kind of song in American theater."--Michael Schulman, author of Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep

True West: Sam Shepard's Life, Work, and Times is the story of an American icon, a lasting portrait of Sam Shepard as he really was, revealed by those who knew him best. This sweeping biography charts Shepard's long and complicated journey from a small town in Southern California to become an internationally known playwright and movie star. The only son of an alcoholic father, Shepard crafted a public persona as an authentic American archetype: the loner, the cowboy, the drifter, the stranger in a strange land. Despite his great critical and financial success, he seemed, like so many of his characters, to remain perpetually dispossessed.

Much like Robert Greenfield's biographies of Jerry Garcia and Timothy Leary, this book delves deeply into Shepard's life as well as the ways in which his work illuminates it. True West takes readers through the world of downtown theater in Lower Manhattan in the early sixties; the jazz scene at New York's Village Gate; fringe theater in London in the seventies; Bob Dylan's legendary Rolling Thunder tour; the making of classic films like Zabriskie Point, Days of Heaven, and The Right Stuff; and Broadway productions of Buried Child, True West, and Fool for Love.

For this definitive biography, Greenfield interviewed dozens of people who knew Shepard well, many of whom had never before spoken on the record about him. While exploring his relationships with Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Jessica Lange across the long arc of his brilliant career, Greenfield makes the case for Shepard as not just a great American writer but a unique figure who first brought the sensibility of rock 'n' roll to theater.

Author: Robert Greenfield
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Published: 04/11/2023
Pages: 448
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.55lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.40w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9780525575955

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 11/01/2022 pg. 19
Publishers Weekly 02/27/2023
Kirkus Reviews 03/01/2023
Booklist 04/01/2023 pg. 12
Shelf Awareness 04/14/2023

About the Author
A former associate editor of the London bureau of Rolling Stone, Robert Greenfield is the author of several classic rock books, among them S.T.P.: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones, as well as the definitive biographies of Bill Graham, Jerry Garcia, Timothy Leary, Ahmet Ertegun, Burt Bacharach, and Augustus Owsley Stanley III. An award-winning novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, he has published short fiction in GQ, Esquire, and Playboy. He lives in California.