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Spy of the First Person

About the Book

Spy of the First Person

The final work from the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, actor and musician, drawn from his transformative last days.
 
In searing, beautiful prose, Sam Shepard’s extraordinary narrative leaps off the page with its immediacy and power. It tells in a brilliant braid of voices the story of an unnamed narrator who traces, before our rapt eyes, his memories of work, adventure and travel as he undergoes medical tests and treatments for a condition that is rendering him more and more dependent on the loved ones who are caring for him. The narrator’s memories and preoccupations often echo those of our current moment --- for here are stories of immigration and community, inclusion and exclusion, suspicion and trust. But at the book’s core, and his, is family --- his relationships with those he loved, and with the natural world around him. Vivid, haunting and deeply moving, SPY OF THE FIRST PERSON takes us from the sculpted gardens of a renowned clinic in Arizona to the blue waters surrounding Alcatraz, from a New Mexico border town to a condemned building on New York City’s Avenue C. It is an unflinching expression of the vulnerabilities that make us human --- and an unbound celebration of family and life.

Spy of the First Person
by Sam Shepard