Lairs johnston biography of williams

By Mike Fischer, Special to the Journal Sentinel

Sept. 19, 20140

In a beautiful passage in Tennessee Williams' "Orpheus Descending," a broken desperado imagines life as a mythical bird capable of flying forever — and therefore never touching down on a corrupting earth until it's time to die.

As John Lahr recognizes in his magnificent "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh" — one of the best written and most extraordinary biographies I've ever read, in any field — Williams' metaphor describes his own quest for creative freedom.

As Lahr also makes clear, the wonder is that this bird ever flew at all — and stayed aloft for so long before falling.

It's no secret that Williams' troubled family — including an abusive and alcoholic father, an emotionally distant mother and a mentally unstable sister — shaped who he was and what he wrote.

Rather than open his