Product Description

Secrest chronicles in full detail Sondheim's ascent to the peaks of the Broadway musical, from his first success as co-lyricist on "West Side Story" to his 20-year collaboration with producer and director Harold Prince. Online feature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #604892 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-08
• Released on: 1999-06-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.com Review
America's foremost musical-theater composer also proves to be a fascinatingly complex and conflicted human being in this meticulous biography by the always-capable Meryle Secrest (Being Bernard Berenson, etc.). Stephen Sondheim himself was interviewed for the book, as were many of his closest friends, and the author makes perceptive use of this material. Born in 1930, Sondheim was a successful Broadway lyricist (West Side Story and Gypsy) before he was 30. But the scars from a miserable childhood remained: he was inclined to be distant, hypercritical of those less intelligent than he, and terrified of serious emotional commitment. Critics sometimes found those qualities in the series of groundbreaking musicals he created with director Hal Prince--Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, and Sweeney Todd, to name four--but they agreed that he brought new intellectual ambition and artistic adventurousness to the musical theater. Secrest does a fine job of delineating Sondheim's career in terms of what it tells us about the state of American theater, as when he shifted to a partnership with writer-director James Lapine and worked in the nonprofit sector for such musicals as Sunday in the Park with George and Assassins. She also does well in selecting revealing quotes to depict the composer's struggle to accept his homosexuality and a rage at his overbearing mother so deep that he didn't even attend her funeral. Sondheim the man and Sondheim the visionary artist get nearly equal time in an intriguing portrait.

From Publishers Weekly
Secrest interviewed composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim extensively for this full-scale biography, resulting in a portrait as subtle and sophisticated as its subject. Son of a wealthy New York City dress designer and manufacturer of German-Jewish extraction, Sondheim, an only child born in 1930, was emotionally neglected by his distant father, Herbert, and by his domineering mother, Janet (Foxy). Herbert left her when their son was 10 to live with his blonde, Catholic, Cuban lover, Alicia Bab?, whom he married after they had two sons. Oscar Hammerstein II became mentor and surrogate father to Sondheim, who grew up isolated, keeping people at a distance. Sondheim discusses with Secrest his 25 years of psychoanalysis, his homosexuality, his early stumbling career as actor and TV scriptwriter, and his working relationships with such pivotal figures in his life as producer Hal Prince and playwright-director Arthur Laurents. Biographer of Leonard Bernstein and Frank Lloyd Wright, Secrest has written a wonderful biography of an uncompromising musical dramatist who uses irony, wit and disillusion to probe painful emotions. Decked out with memorable photographs, her moving and perceptive portrait, full of Broadway lore, provides an incomparable peek into the genesis of such musicals as West Side Story, Gypsy, A Little Night Music and Passion.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Much has been written about Sondheim as the foremost theater composer of the latter 20th century, with works ranging from West Side Story to Sunday in the Park with George. Secrest (Leonard Bernstein, LJ 11/1/94) here tackles his personal life, revealing a private side rarely discussed or explored. She has exhaustively researched her subject with the cooperation of Sondheim himself as well as numerous colleagues, family, and friends. Though initially bogged down in detailing his dysfunctional childhood and alienated parents, her book improves when she begins describing Sondheim's inspirational friendship with Oscar Hammerstein and his burgeoning career as a musical composer. While she does not discuss the creative genesis of his shows with as much detail as other sources, Secrest chooses her anecdotes with care. Her strength is her straightforward style: not reverential but respectful and informative. Sondheim's homosexuality is revealed very matter-of-factly, yet the discussion of specific relationships is sporadic. Despite the examination, Sondheim emerges as an intensely private and enigmatic man. Secrest concludes that his musicals to date are not only a reflection of his psyche but also a personal inspiration to himself. Only time will tell whether Sondheim's music in fact brings us closer to the man.
-AKevin Henegan, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Okay, but the definitive book on SS has yet to be written
Secrest has written a book on Sondheim that skims the surface and gives a broad overview. It rarely has insights, however, except a few "anaylses" of the musicals themselves that often border on the ludicrous (such as how many references to S&M there are in his works). There are misspellings of people's names, wrong dates, and some confused plot descriptions as well. But most of all, she seems too polite and distanced from her subject, offering facts but not insight or exploration. I'm not asking for National Enquirer-style dirt, but there is more on the inner-workings and intrigue of such works as "Merrily" in Craig Zadan's "Sondheim & Company," which unfortuantely is out of print, I believe. Furthermore, Secrest is often a confusing writer. She switches pronouns without always making it clear who is now doing the talking, or includes an out-of-context quote without explaining its meaning or context. She also repeats herself in several spots, making me think she revised one segment while forgetting what she had written just a page later or earlier. In short, this book needed an editor, as well as a more probing and insightful author. Most biographies suffer from excessive speculation. This one has just the opposite flaw.

Not as great as I thought it would be...
I bought this book after it had been hyped up in "The Sondheim Review", a magazine for Sondheim junkies like myself. I read it in hopes of going behind the genius of such musicals as "Follies", "Company" and "West Side Story", but instead got a dark and detailed (too detailed for my taste) account of the more dreary parts of his life. There is some musical theater critique, but her lack of knowledge in this area is unbelievable. Her constant "Here, let me tell you what I think was going on at this point" grows tiresome as well. Still, there's no denying his life has been fascinating, and this book serves as a good rainy day reader.

A disappointing biography.
I, like many other people, approached this biography with high hopes. Unfortunately, I found an often poorly and pretentiously written book. Some of it is so incoherent that it was hard to believe it had been edited and copy-edited. There were also a number of factual errors in the book, many of them minor, some not so minor, but surprising in a book like this (especially one that Sondheim was apparently allowed to see and comment on before publication).

However, what is the Sondheim addict to do? Craig Zadan's "Sondheim and Co." and Stephen Banfield's "Sondheim's Broadway Musicals" both have much of value (Martin Gottfried's "Sondheim" is awful), even if Banfield's often brilliant and certainly ground-breaking book has a few factual errors of its own. But they are not biographies. If you love Sondheim, this is a book you're going to want to read; there is unquestionably much that is of interest here. Hopefully, no one will read it under the illusion that it is definitive. In the meantime, I look forward to the next Sondheim biography in the hope that when it comes, it is better than this one.