Love Letters and Two Other Plays - by A R Gurney (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR DRAMA

In such critically acclaimed plays as The Dining Room and The Cocktail Hour, A. R. Gurney has wittily captured the manners of upper-middle-class WASP America, but never as gracefully or with such dazzling economy as in Love Letters. Tracing the lifelong correspondence of the staid, dutiful lawyer Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and the lively, unstable artist Melissa Gardner, the story of their bittersweet relationship gradually unfolds from what is written--and what is left unsaid--in their letters. A smash hit both off and on Broadway, Love Letters captures Andy and Melissa with a precision of detail and depth of feeling that only Gurney can command. Two other, thematically related plays by Gurney, The Golden Age and What I Did Last Summer, are included, providing a trio of wry and affectionate paeans to love lost, found, and fleetingly glimpsed.

Review Quotes

"Gurney's finest work, and one of the four or five best American plays of the '80s."--Time

"Exhilirating, funny, and moving"--The Wall Street Journal

"Delightful ... entertaining ... satisfying ... The most charming play to date of a charming writer."--The New York Observer

"A mini-epic ... Dialogue this fine can speak for itself."--USA Today

"Gurney is an extraordinarily precise and economical writer ... His virtues have seldom been better displayed than they are in Love Letters."--Howard Kissel, New York Daily News

About the Author

A.R. Gurney is the author of many highly acclaimed plays, including The Cocktail Hour, Love Letters, The Dining Room, Scenes from American Life, and The Middle Ages. He is also the author of three novels and the reipient of the Drama Desk Award and the Award of Merit from the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.