"Throughout his life Williams reflected, in his work, the entrapment, family dysfunction, and madness he associated with two miserable decades in St. Louis. Citing Williams’s plays, poetry, stories, memoir, interviews, and even his Greek exam from St. Louis’s Washington University, Schvey is the ideal guide in this first book-length study of the city’s imprint on Williams. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice
“Schvey’s writing style is delightful to read...it manages to fuse the meticulous research of the scholar with a personal voice and connection to Williams that makes the book come alive.”—Annette J. Saddik, Professor of Theatre and Literature, City University of New York, author of Tennessee Williams and the Theatre of Excess: The Strange, the Crazed, the Queer
“Tennessee Williams's formative St. Louis years—spanning his adolescence and early adulthood—have for so long been biographical flyover country, barely acknowledged even by Williams himself. Now a fellow St. Louisan, Henry Schvey, has brought this period vividly to life. Blue Song, with its impeccable scholarship and intimate personal engagement, finally completes the portrait of America's greatest playwright.”—Rocco Landesman, Former chair of the NEA and 3-time Tony Award winning Broadway producer
“When Tennessee Williams was asked what brought him to New Orleans, he said ‘St Louis’. In this eminently readable and exhaustively researched study, Henry Schvey deftly swivels the spotlight illuminating the work of Tennessee Williams from the freedom of New Orleans which is typically heralded as the source of his greatness and shines it boldly back into the prison of Tennessee’s life in ‘Saint Pollution’ which enshrouded him with a darkness he was never able to escape. A notable contribution to the understanding of this great ever fascinating American playwright.”—John Guare, playwright and screenwriter, author of The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation