Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh - Tapa blanda

A masterpiece about a genius (Helen Mirren)

Testimony to the crazy exhilaration of the entire theatrical process, and to the self-destructive solipsism of a great artist (Nicholas Hytner, Observer Books of the Year)

John Lahr's monumental tribute to the play's 34-year-old creator, the son of a frigid, hysterical virago and a combustible father - a travelling shoe-salesman whose ear was bitten off in a poker fight . Lahr's understanding of Williams is stamped on every page. "In playwriting, he found a strategy both to hide himself away and to vent his murderous feelings" (Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph Biographies of the Year)

John Lahr's subtitle points to the spicier ingredients the reader can feast on in this very long but never dull book . He is supremely qualified for his task (Financial Times)

A thrilling roller-coaster ride from its opening act to the tragic last scene, with Williams lying dead on the floor of a New York hotel room, his bloated body overwhelmed by drink, drugs, and sadness (Marcus Field, Independent Books of the Year)

Dazzling, insightful ... It is a masterpiece on several levels: of synthesis and analysis (Paul Taylor, Independent)

Riveting accounts of Williams's plays in production, skilfully handled flashbacks to the early life, plenty of gossip, lavish quantities of photographs and yards of quotation. The result: total immersion, and a masterful analysis of a "self-cannibalising" writer "prepared to destroy himself for meaning" (Sunday Times Books of the Year)

Marvellous, huge, almost out-of-control biography (The Times Book of the Week)

By far the best book ever written about America's greatest playwright. John Lahr, the longtime drama critic for the New Yorker, knows his way around Broadway better than anyone. He is a witty and elegant stylist, a scrupulous researcher, a passionate yet canny advocate (Wall Street Journal)

What lifts Lahr's book into the canon of biographical masterpieces (not a word I bandy about daily) is that, in chronicling the prurient excesses of Williams's existence, he also explores, with critical and psychological acuity, the way in which great art emerged from such a profoundly unsettled and disquieting life ... Lahr's biography is awash with wonderfully skewed backstage anecdotes from Williams's career ... The seminal importance of Tennessee Williams shines through the biography - and so does the seminal sadness of his tortured life (New Statesman)