Gray's Anatomy - by Spalding Gray (Paperback)

About the Book

The hilarious new monologue by the author of Monster in a Box and Impossible Vacation, this is the ultimate mid-life crisis book that takes Gray into the world of alternative therapies--and to the altar! Excerpted in The New York Times Magazine.

Book Synopsis

In middle age Spalding Gray has entered "the Bermuda Triangle of Health," that place where the body begins to break down in alarming and humiliating ways. His immediate problem is an eye complaint that could be corrected with minor surgery. But for the high priest of high anxiety, nothing is ever minor. And so Gray embarks on a crazed crusade for wellness that takes him from a Native American sweat lodge to a dictatorial nutritionist and, finally, to a gory session with the "Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons" in the Far East.

Exquisitely timed, unfettered in its intelligence, and funny enough to push readers to the brink of cardiac arrest, Gray's Anatomy is a surreal tour de force of body and soul.

Review Quotes

"Gray has turned his trademark navel-gazing into looking himself in the eye -- literally...A witty tour through the world of alternative medicine and his own anxieties." -- Washington Post

"One of the funniest travelogues of the human landscape [Gray] has yet spun out...As close as he has ever been to becoming a stand-up comedian. God bless him for it." -- Chicago Tribune

"Spalding Gray may be the nation's most outstanding storyteller. Nothing eludes his eye or the sureness of his satire. The secret of his success is the skewed angle of vision -- his eccentric wit and ruthless candor." -- Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Spalding Gray was born and raised in Rhode Island. A cofounder of the acclaimed New York City theater company the Wooster Group, he appeared on Broadway and in numerous films, including Roland Joffé's The Killing Fields, David Byrne's True Stories, Garry Marshall's Beaches, and as the subject of the 2010 Steven Soderbergh documentary, And Everything is Going Fine. His monologues include Sex and Death to the Age 14, Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box, Gray's Anatomy, and It's a Slippery Slope. He died in 2004.