Mark Twain famously said, “Write what you know.” Wendy Wasserstein expertly reached generations of women doing just that. The two authors have more in common than a philosophy that allows life to create art imitating life. Both writers were humorists, celebrated for their honesty and fair share of cheek. Lesser known; both were masters at playing themselves. Sam Clemons recreated himself under the pen name used by a beloved river captain, Mark Twain. Wendy Wasserstein kept her original moniker, but altered the reality of Wendy girl for the outside world - using her ability to weave worlds and bury secrets as she continuously reinvented herself.
In Julie Salamon’s beautifully written authorized biography of the playwright, Wendy Wasserstein is brought back to the stage for her final bow. Wendy and the Lost Boys is a journey through the many stages of love and its ability to break a heart, shape ambition and foster genius.
[Product Description] The authorized biography of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein.
"In Wendy and the Lost Boys bestselling author Julie Salamon explores the life of playwright Wendy Wasserstein's most expertly crafted character: herself. The first woman playwright to win a Tony Award, Wendy Wasserstein was a Broadway titan. But with her high- pitched giggle and unkempt curls, she projected an image of warmth and familiarity. Everyone knew Wendy Wasserstein. Or thought they did.
Born on October 18, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrant parents, Wendy was the youngest of Lola and Morris Wasserstein's five children. Lola had big dreams for her children. They didn't disappoint: Sandra, Wendy's glamorous sister, became a high- ranking corporate executive at a time when Fortune 500 companies were an impenetrable boys club. Their brother Bruce became a billionaire superstar of the investment banking world. Yet behind the family's remarkable success was a fiercely guarded world of private tragedies.
Wendy perfected the family art of secrecy while cultivating a densely populated inner circle. Her friends included theater elite such as playwright Christopher Durang, Lincoln Center Artistic Director André Bishop, former New York Times theater critic Frank Rich, and countless others.
And still almost no one knew that Wendy was pregnant when, at age forty-eight, she was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital to deliver Lucy Jane three months premature. The paternity of her daughter remains a mystery. At the time of Wendy's tragically early death less than six years later, very few were aware that she was gravely ill. The cherished confidante to so many, Wendy privately endured her greatest heartbreaks alone.
In Wendy and the Lost Boys, Salamon assembles the fractured pieces, revealing Wendy in full. Though she lived an uncommon life, she spoke to a generation of women during an era of vast change. Revisiting Wendy's works-The Heidi Chronicles and others-we see Wendy in the free space of the theater, where her many selves all found voice. Here Wendy spoke in the most intimate of terms about everything that matters most: family and love, dreams and devastation. And that is the Wendy of Neverland, the Wendy who will never grow old."
Salamon serves as an authentic and poignant narrator, using her authorized research into Wasserstein’s works, notes and diaries – along with countless of hours invested in interviewing those closest to the magnetizing playwright – to offer a slice of life that is as unfathomable as it is relatable. Hopeful, vibrant and determined, Wendy dances, drudges and battles through life with more tenacity than the truest of heroines. Her mistakes, losses and unexpected turns remind the reader that reality inside the frame is never picture perfect. Dreams hard won weigh heavy even when the albatross sparkles, and the truth is always a varying shade of what we perceive. But hope, in the hands of a buoyed spirit, forever floats.
About the Author: Julie Salamon is the author of Hospital, about Maimonides Hospital, as well as The New York Times bestseller The Christmas Tree; the true-crime book Facing the Wind; the novel White Lies; the film classic The Devil's Candy; a family memoir, The Net of Dreams; and Rambam's Ladder. Previously a reporter and critic with The Wall Street Journal, she has also written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and The New Republic.
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