Great Dream of Heaven - by Sam Shepard (Paperback)

About the Book

In these 18 elegantly terse stories, Shepard taps the same wellsprings that have made him an acclaimed--and distinctly American--playwright: sex and regret, the yearning for a frontier, the comic gulf of misapprehension between men and women, and the even deeper gulf that separates men from their true selves.

Book Synopsis

In eighteen stories unlike any in our contemporary literature, Sam Shepard explores the vast and rugged American West with the same parched intensity that has made him "the great playwright of his generation" (The New York Times).

A boy watches a "remedy man" tame a wild stallion, a contest that mirrors his own struggle with his father. A woman driving her mother's ashes across the country has a strangely transcendent run-in with an injured hawk. Two aging widowers, in Stetsons and bolo ties, together make a daily pilgrimage to the local Denny's, only to be divided by the attentions of their favorite waitress. Peering unblinkingly into the chasms that separate fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and strangers, these powerful tales bear the unmistakable signature of an American master.

Review Quotes

"Extraordinary by any measure. . . . With this collection [Shepard] becomes a storyteller in the purest sense." --The New York Times Book Review

"Devastatingly artful. . . . Brutal and satisfying. . . . In their careful craft and mysterious revelations, the best stories in Great Dream of Heaven recall . . . Chekhov." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Strong emotions . . . make a Sam Shepard story as familiar as an old leather saddle. . . . Shepard's terse, lyrical style excels. . . . There's something broadly American . . . about the frustrations his characters feel." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Shocking. . . . Often funny. . . . Shepard's writing is consistently excellent." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"His playwriting skills . . . make his fiction shimmer with a brutal clarity." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

About the Author

Sam Shepard was the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of more than fifty-five plays and three story collections. As an actor, he appeared in more than sixty films, and received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for The Right Stuff. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven. In 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. He died in 2017.