Tennessee: Cry of the Heart: An Intimate Memoir of Tennessee Williams

by Dotson Rader

Drama, Plays, Theatre, Literature, Reading, Learning

Genres: Biography, Memoir, Theatre, LGBT, Nonfiction

348 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Julene · Rating 4 out of 5]

After I went to see the play Small Craft Warnings, I came across this book and decided to read it. I'm familiar with Tennessee William's more well-known plays, but didn't know much about his life, so it was good timing. When I got to the end of this book I felt very sad at his demise, especially since he had someone in the next room and might have been saved.

The intimate details his best and longest friend, Dotson Rader, revealed were sometimes disturbing. He provides an insider view of a man who was a tortured writer whose many relationships didn't work out. Tennessee over indulged in prescription drugs and drinking and he was in constant chronic need to have someone by his side. My feelings stirred in many directions while reading this book. There is angst, drama, hysterically funny stories, lots of sex, desperation, violence, all reported in a chatty style as if to a friend. By part two I was hooked. The style is to introduce the many, in a drop-name style, which is why reports on the book claim it is gossipy, but this is part of its appeal. Anyone who has stories to tell about Fidel Castro, Greta Garbo, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Abbie Hoffman, and a whole host of international artists, performers, leaders of countries, writers, a cast of thousands, including the many young gay men that cycle through his life, holds interest if told well. And Dotson shares the gossip in an interesting way.

It's not only a book about Tennessee Williams but about a time and generation that had a huge impact culturally. We get an intimate view into gay history and how predominant the violence was, with gays being beat up and killed. The locals in Key West were stirred up and angry about the gentrification. In these early years of the gay movement, before Stonewall and the gay marches, Tennessee was unabashedly gay.

He had a dear relationship with his sister, his mother directed her to get a lobotomy early in her life. This changed her and it affected Tennessee who took care of his sister the rest of her life, paying for her to say at a facility where she was well cared for.

He had a brief moment with a women who he married, but shortly after divorced because, well he was gay. He attributes his success as a writer to being gay and not having many alimonies to pay like Norman Mailer did. That gossip is the kind of honesty that is real. Also, to read about his friendship with Carson McCullers at the end of her life; her lover was a black woman whose angry brother crashed the funeral stripping roses off the casket and tried to topple it over!

The book informed and moved me. His later years overlapped with my young years making it personal and relevant.

[Still · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasted 3 very good days on this trash.
What gossip there is, is quite stingy at best but Dotson Rader never once allows the reader to forget what a swinging dick he was back in the late 1960s.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit boring and self-indulgent. It's not clear why Dotson like Tennessee. Tons of name-dropping and a generally depressing sketch of the playwright, and certainly repetitive if you've read the much more entertaining Williams' Memoirs. Now *that* is fun.

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Dumb" is the only unsophisticated way of communicating how ridiculous this book is, and while reading it the word "dumb" came across my mind often. A close friend of Tennessee Williams writes a kind of memoir that supposedly paints the famous Broadway writer as a warrior of socialism, a man who had a huge heart for people, and a sophisticated gay guy marred by his addictions. But what it turns out to really be is the story of a mentally unstable writer who is surprised by his success, cluelessly takes leftist political stances without knowing what he's talking about, and bemoaning capitalism while living the opposite.

Once I got to the section on the greatness of Fidel Castro I knew this book could not be trusted. The author quotes Williams: "Castro was a gentleman. An educated man...What a beautiful man!...I am certain he does not know what is going on in his prisons or he would instantly put a stop to it!" Huh? That's the ultimate in ignorant stupidity.

As is the writer's attempt to excuse away Williams' mistreatment of young blond men he tried to seduce. Rader got the leftovers and their cavalier attitude toward humanity is disgusting, treating others as either sexual bodies (if they liked them) or idiots (if they thought the guy was a dumb Midwesterner). This made Rader and Williams sound like stupid elitists looking down their noses at the rest of society.

Their drug use is off the charts and of course sexual promiscuity is assumed as normal. Why can't supposedly intelligent people figure out that most of their problems with health, depression, rejected potential romances, and ultimately self-destruction come from their making bad choices. But the author (and Williams) don't believe in self-responsibility or self-discipline--unless it is for capitalists and conservatives, who they think should give up rights in order to allow others to mooch off of them.

Let me summarize it this way: independent moral self-sufficient people are bad and deserve to have most everything they've earned taken from them; addicted dependent immoral losers are good and deserve to be given whatever they want that will feed their addictions and mental illness. Sadly, this is how half of America now thinks.

It's all very ridiculous, except for a few passages where celebrities are exposed. In one shocking section, Warren Beatty is shown to be a bisexual, coming to Williams door in the middle of the night in an attempt to seduce the playwright. I had no idea and wonder why this hasn't been reported broadly.

In another aside the author mentions that he knows Billy Graham (through his fundamentalist preacher father) and speculates on what Graham does in bed. Come on, really?

In the end this book and Tennessee Williams are as long, dull, and fake as a four-hour Tennessee Williams stage production by British actors doing southern accepts. You may cry, but not due to your heart being tugged--you'll be sad that you wasted your time on it.

[Novascot · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a progressive collection of vignettes, describing the author's friendship with Tennessee Williams, featuring interactions with a litany of famous contemporaries. Not for the faint of heart, as some sections are quite personal, especially involving who Tennessee was involved with at the time. I found it reveals quite a pendulum swing within Mr. Williams personality, including great joys and dark sorrows. I don't recommend it to everyone, but in part, it reveals the great well which produced such works as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Night of the Iguana.

[Lollipopwater · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book to be more full of juicy gossip rather than anything of much importance. Which isn't to say it wasn't a fun read. I read it in a day, and some of the tales made me wonder if the writer took some liberties towards being overly dramatic.

[Phyllis]

Tennessee Williams

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Breezey, somewhat vulgar account of the author's life as Tennessee Williams's chief hanger-on. We learn, repeatedly, that Williams wrote every day, swam everyday, and did a lot of drugs, baby.