The Columnist - by David Auburn (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A new play from the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning author of Proof, coming to Broadway this April

In midcentury America, newspaper columnists are kings--and Joseph Alsop wears the biggest crown. Joe sits at the nexus of Washington life: beloved, feared, and courted in equal measure by the very people whose careers and futures he determines. But as the sixties dawn and America undergoes dizzying change, the intense political dramas Joe has been throwing his weight around in--supporting the war in Vietnam and Soviet containment, criticizing student activism--come to bear a profound personal cost.

Based on the real-life story of Joe Alsop, whose columns at the time of his 1974 retirement were running three times a week in more than three hundred newspapers, David Auburn's The Columnist is a deft blend of history and storytelling. A hilarious, searing portrait of the glorious rewards and devastating losses that accompany ego, ambition, and the pursuit of power, The Columnist pens a vital letter from a radically changing decade to our own turbulent era.

Review Quotes

"A play about scientists whose science matters less than their humanity . . . All four [characters]--whether loving, hating, encouraging or impeding one another--are intensely alive, complex, funny, human." --JOHN SIMON, New York on Proof

"An exhilarating and assured new play . . . Accessible and compelling as a detective story." --BRUCE WEBER, The New York Times on Proof

About the Author

David Auburn is an American playwright whose 2000 play Proof won the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was also adapted into a film. He has received the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Manhattan.