Riveting, funny, heartbreaking, at once raw and lyrical: these journals reveal the complexity of the actor/writer who invented the autobiographical monologue and perfected the form in such celebrated works as Swimming to Cambodia. Here is the first intimate portrait we have of the man behind the charismatic performer who ended his life in 2004: evolving artist, conflicted celebrity, a man struggling for years with depression before finally succumbing to its most desperate impulse. Begun when he was twenty-five, the journals give us Gray’s reflections on his childhood; his craving for success; the downtown New York arts scene of the 1970s; his love affairs, marriages and fatherhood; his travels in Europe and Asia; and throughout, his passion for the theater, where he worked to balance his compulsion to tell all with his terror of having his deepest secrets exposed. Culled from more than five thousand pages and including interviews with friends, colleagues, lovers, and family, The Journals of Spalding Gray gives us a haunting portrait of a creative genius who we thought had told us everything about himself—until now.

The Journals of Spalding Gray

GRAY, SPALDING

Humor & Entertainment

KNOPF

Riveting, funny, heartbreaking, at once raw and lyrical: these journals reveal the extraordinary inner life of the actor-writer who invented the autobiographical monologue and perfected the form in such celebrated works as Swimming to Cambodia. Begun when he was twenty-five, Spalding Gray's journals reflect on his childhood; his craving for success; the downtown New York arts scene of the 1970s; his love affairs, marriages, and fatherhood; his travels in Europe and Asia; and throughout, his passion for the theater, where he worked to balance his compulsion to tell all with his fear of having his deepest secrets exposed. The Journals of Spalding Gray gives us a haunting portrait of a creative genius who we thought had told us everything about himself—until now.

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

“It took courage to do what Spalding did—courage to make theatre so naked and unadorned, to expose himself in this way and fight the demons in public. In doing so, he entered our hearts—my heart—because he made his struggle my struggle. His life became my life.”—Eric Bogosian“Virtuosic. A master writer, reporter, comic and playwright. Spalding Gray is a sit-down monologist with the soul of a stand-up comedian. A contemporary Gulliver, he travels the globe in search of experience and finds the ridiculous.”—The New York TimesIn 2004, we mourned the loss of one of America’s true theatrical innovators. Spalding Gray took his own life by jumping from the Staten Island ferry into the waters of New York Harbor, finally succumbing to the impossible notion that he could in fact swim to Cambodia. At a memorial gathering for family, friends and fans at Lincoln Center in New York, his widow expressed the need to honor Gray’s legacy as an artist and writer for his children, as well as for future generations of fans and readers. Originally published in 1985, Swimming to Cambodia is reissued here 20 years later in a new edition as a tribute to Gray’s singular artistry.Writer, actor and performer, Spalding Gray is the author of Sex and Death to the Age 14; Monster in a Box; It’s a Slippery Slope; Gray’s Anatomy and Morning, Noon and Night, among other works. His appearance in The Killing Fields was the inspiration for his Swimming to Cambodia, which was also filmed by Jonathan Demme.

Swimming to Cambodia

Picador

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. '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

Gray's Anatomy

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Morning, Noon and Night

The hilarious new monologue about fatherhood, by the author of It's a Slippery Slope In Morning, Noon and Night that master of the confessional, Spalding Gray, tells the event-filled, emotionally charged and outrageously funny story of one day of his life in October 1997, after the birth of his son Theo. Horrified by the prospect of having another son, considering what he and his two brothers did to their father, and ambivalent about the idea of living in a small, quaint town on eastern Long Island that seems an odd detour for a man destined for California, Spalding comes to feel, of course, a profound affinity for his baby boy, born with the looks of "a wet, blue beaver." But this is not merely a father's account of an infant son; it's the story of his new life with his girlfriend Kathie; his regally precocious eleven-year-old stepdaughter, Marissa ("Please don't let me die a virgin!"); and his older son, Forrest, who stymies Spalding time and again with his metaphysical inquisitiveness: "Daddy, what's behind the stars?" "How do flies celebrate?" Cosmic questions that for Gray are reinforced by the view from his bedroom window-a seventeenth-century graveyard-a cold reminder to the author of the impermanence of things, the transient nature of his life, the strange calling of his profession, which brilliantly confirms Wordsworth's dictum that the child is father to the man. A richly comic work about parenthood , about adults who don't grow up and children who do, that stands as Spalding Gray's most mature work to date.

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Within a year, the familiar boundaries of Spalding Gray's existence have been altered by betrayal, love, lust and loss. He suddenly marries his longtime companion, and divorces her just as quickly; he moves in with his girlfriend, Kathie, who bears him a son; and he learns, against all odds, to ski. But not even his mastery of the much-feared right turn can prepare him for the exhilarating experience of fatherhood. A brilliant improvisation with as many twists and turns as a double-diamond course, It's a Slippery Slope explores how one man survives a mid-life crisis by finding his balance on skis.

It's a Slippery Slope

A hilarious monologue about fatherhood by a unique comic voice
In Morning, Noon and Night that master of the confessional, Spalding Gray, tells the event-filled, emotionally charged, and outrageously funny story of one day of his life in October 1997, after the birth of his son Theo. Horrified by the prospect of having another son, considering what he and his two brothers did to their father, and ambivalent about the idea of living in a small, quaint town on eastern Long Island that seems an odd detour for a man destined for California, Gray comes to feel, of course, a profound affinity for his baby boy, born with the looks of a "wet, blue beaver." But this is not merely a father's account of an infant son; it's the story of his new life with his girlfriend Kathie; his regally precocious eleven-year-old stepdaughter, Marissa ("Please don't let me die a virgin!"); and his older son, Forrest, who stymies Gray time and again with his metaphysical inquisitiveness-"Daddy, what's behind the stars?" "How do flies celebrate?"
A richly comic work about parenthood, about adults who don't grow up and children who do, Morning, Noon and Night stands as Gray's most mature work to date.

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Having detailed the agonies of writing a book in his monologue Monster in a Box, Spalding Gray now gives us the monster itself: a convulsively funny, unexpectedly moving novel about a man eternally searching for a moment of protected pleasure even as he is permanently incapable of finding it. Brewster North witnesses his mother's madness but misses her suicide; searches frantically for enlightenment in the Poconos and zipless sex in India; suffers family ennui in Rhode Island and a nervous breakdown in Amsterdam. In the process he emerges as a hilariously complex everyman. And as Gray narrates his hero's free fall, he confirms his own stature as one of our funniest, most eccentric, and most engaging storytellers. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Impossible Vacation

United States

Alfred.A. Knopf

This is a collection of six monologues by the master of one-man drama. Included are "Sex and Death at the Age of 14," "Booze, Cars, and College Girls," "47 Beds," "Nobody Wanted to Sit Behind a Desk," "Travels through New England," and "Terror of Pleasure: The House." Also includes a preface by the author.

Sex and Death to the Age 14

For some time now, writer-actor-performance artist Spalding Gray has been carrying around with him a monster: a manuscript of a novel called Impossible Vacation, a book that at last sighting weighed in at about 1,800 pages. Monster in a Box is a guided tour between the stations of his writing block, which include a field trip to Nicaragua, a disastrous guest appearance at the Moscow film festival, and a stint in Los Angeles hunting down the fabled few who have never written a screenplay. Hilarious and poignant, Monster in a Box is further proof that Gray has not only captured the dangerous spirit of our age but swallowed it whole.

Monster in a Box

Vintage

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Books by GRAY, SPALDING

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by GRAY, SPALDING. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Journals of Spalding Gray

The Journals of Spalding Gray

Swimming to Cambodia

Gray's Anatomy

Morning, Noon and Night

It's a Slippery Slope

Morning, Noon and Night

Impossible Vacation

Sex and Death to the Age 14

Monster in a Box