Sam Shepard

Shepard's novel "opens with a man in his house at dawn, surrounded by aspens, coyotes cackling in the distance as he quietly navigates the distance between present and past. More and more, memory is overtaking him: in his mind he sees himself in a movie-set trailer, his young face staring back at him in a mirror surrounded by light bulbs. In his dreams and in visions he sees his late father -- sometimes in miniature, sometimes flying planes, sometimes...

In Fool For Love, situated at a seedy motel on the edge of the Mojave Desert, transient lovers May and Eddie spin around in a room in a relentless struggle for power and truth. Through recollections and dreams, multiple versions of a fierce and fatal love story are told. The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife, another kind of love story in the form of a comic operetta, takes a distaff view of the Southwest's legendary cowpuncher...

Austin, a Hollywood writer and his unsuccessful, drifter brother attempt to switch identities. Along the way, both realize that each other's life isn't at all what they hoped it would be. For each man, the myth of the Great Frontier is finally vanquished.

Sam Shepard has been described by the New Yorker as 'one of the most original, prolific and gifted dramatists at work today'. Here are seven of his finest plays, including True West and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child. True West: 'A mythic study of fraternal division ... What makes the play so rich is Shepard's profound understanding of the spiritual incompleteness of each brother and, by extension, of the American experience.' Guardian. Buried...

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...

"A solitary man digs a hole in the ground, near a dead horse. Amid the clutter of food and equipment stands Hobart Struther, who has ridden all the way out to the middle of nowhere on a holy mission. But one day into his "grand sojourn," things are looking bleak. His horse has choked to death, he's miles away from civilization, and there's not a person around to talk to - other than himself. As Hobart examines his rise - how he built a vast art collection...

Filled with wry, dark humor, unparalleled imagination, unforgettable characters, and exquisitely crafted storytelling, Sam Shepard's plays have earned him enormous acclaim over the past five decades. In these fifteen one-acts, we see him at his best.