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Arthur Miller: American Witness (Jewish Lives) Hardcover – November 1, 2022

by John Lahr (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 32 ratings
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A great theater critic brings twentieth-century playwright Arthur Miller’s dramatic story to life with bold and revealing new insights
 
“Lahr’s cogent analyses are revelatory. . . . He does not reduce the work to the life, but shows how it explains the life from which it emerges.”—Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal
 
“New Yorker critic Lahr shines in this searching account of the life of playwright Arthur Miller. . . . It’s a great introduction to a giant of American letters.”—Publishers Weekly
 
Distinguished theater critic John Lahr brings unique perspective to the life of Arthur Miller (1915–2005), the playwright who almost single-handedly propelled twentieth-century American theater to a new level of cultural sophistication. Organized around the fault lines of Miller’s life—his family, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, Elia Kazan and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Marilyn Monroe, Vietnam, and the rise and fall of Miller’s role as a public intellectual—this book demonstrates the synergy between Arthur Miller’s psychology and his plays.
 
Concentrating largely on Miller’s most prolific decades of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Lahr probes Miller’s early playwriting failures; his work writing radio plays during World War II after being rejected for military service; his only novel, Focus; and his succession of award-winning and canonical plays that include All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible, providing an original interpretation of Miller’s work and his personality.
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  1. Part of series
    Jewish Lives
  2. Print length
    264 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Yale University Press
  5. Publication date
    November 1, 2022
  6. Dimensions
    6 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0300234929
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0300234923
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Lahr’s cogent analyses [in Arthur Miller] are revelatory but not surgical, and his sympathy never cloys. He does what a good literary biographer must do: He does not reduce the work to the life, but shows how it explains the life from which it emerges. He is an investigative reporter, a profiler of personality, mind and character, and a critic who understands drama on the page and in the house.”—Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal

“His plays, although rooted in the personal as John Lahr establishes, can still disclose truths about the political world that might otherwise be denied.”—John Stokes, Times Literary Supplement

Named by the New Yorker as a Best Book of 2022

“It is a tapestry rich with personal as well as public detail, but it also makes irrefutable the argument (sometimes opposed) that Miller’s Jewishness was foundational to his writing.”—John Nathan, Jewish Chronicle

“New Yorker critic Lahr shines in this searching account of the life of playwright Arthur Miller. . . . It’s a great introduction to a giant of American letters.”—Publishers Weekly

“An engaging summary of a celebrated and checkered career.”—Kirkus Reviews

“In this succinct and gorgeously written portrait, the former New Yorker drama critic and award-winning biographer of Tennessee Williams offers a keen psychological appraisal of Miller’s works, and of Miller himself.”—Julia Klein, Boston Globe

“John Lahr’s slender, sharp biography offers an engaging account of the playwright’s life, beginning with his New York childhood. Lahr also provides a penetrating interpretation of Arthur Miller’s canonical works.”—Christian Science Monitor, “November’s 10 Best Books”

“Beautifully written. . . . Lahr’s latest book is the achievement of a fine and mature scholar, and the volume has the interpretive sensitivity, scholarly scruple, narrative energy, and cultural depth to make it one of the major coordinates in Miller studies.”—Matthew Roudané, Tennessee Williams Annual Review

“In this instructive, well-wrought interpretative biography, Lahr illuminates the enduring contributions Miller made to cultural affairs, at home and abroad. This insightful, accessible presentation will captivate Miller scholars and novices alike.”—H. I. Einsohn, Choice

“With this admirably brief book, Mr. Lahr, a prominent theater critic, delivers a no-filler biography that still leaves room for his keen critical insights.”—Kurt Wenzel, East Hampton Star

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2023

“No one writes about playwrights and the theater the way John Lahr does. In this probing, brilliantly insightful, and also deeply readable and entertaining book, he offers unique insight into how Miller’s mind works, and how the details of his biography impacted his body of work.”—Sarah Ruhl, MacArthur Prize–winning playwright

“Lahr lets us see the great American playwright with new eyes. After his highly acclaimed Tennessee Williams biography, Lahr scores a second smash hit with Arthur Miller. No one writes more perceptively about the twentieth-century theater than John Lahr.”—John Guare, playwright, Six Degrees of Separation

“A superbly written, impeccably researched biography from the great John Lahr. The close relationship between Miller and his plays is detailed and sympathetic. A classic book about a classic American playwright.”—André Bishop, artistic director, Lincoln Center Theater

“In Arthur Miller, the great critic and biographer John Lahr has found a perfect subject: complex, gifted, a man of his times. This is biography-as-collaboration, and utterly captivating.”—Hilton Als, Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist and author

About the Author

John Lahr has been a contributor to the New Yorker since 1991, where for twenty-one years he was its senior drama critic. He is the author of eighteen books, including Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. He is the first critic to win a Tony Award, for coauthoring Elaine Stritch at Liberty.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press (November 1, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300234929
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300234923
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 32 ratings

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John Lahr

John Lahr

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John Lahr writes for The New Yorker, where he was for 21 years the Senior drama critic of the magazine. A veteran of all aspects of the theatre, Lahr has contributed behind-the-scenes portraits, reviews, and Profiles, and has expanded the magazine's drama coverage beyond Broadway to include the work of international theatre and regional companies.

A former theatre critic at The Nation, The Village Voice, and British Vogue, among other publications, Lahr has published seventeen books on the theatre and two novels, "The Autograph Hound," and "Hot to Trot." His book "Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization," won the 1992 Roger Machell Prize for best book on the performing arts. His other works include "Light Fantastic: Adventures in Theatre," (1996) and "Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles," (2000). In 2001, he edited "The Diaries of Kenneth." His expanded New Yorker article on Frank Sinatra was made into a book with photographs, "Frank Sinatra: The Artist and the Man." Lahr's most recent book is "Honky Tonk Parade: New Yorker Profiles of Show People," published in 2005.

Lahr served as literary adviser to the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 1968, and as Literary Manager of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre from 1969 to 1971. He was the co-producer of the 1987 film "Prick Up Your Ears," based on his Joe Orton biography of the same title, and was the editor of "The Orton Diaries." Lahr has also written numerous movie scripts. His short film "Sticky My Fingers. . . Fleet My Feet" (directed by John Hancock) was nominated for an Academy Award in 1971.

Lahr is a two-time winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. In 1968, he became the prize's youngest recipient; he was honored again in 1993. Lahr has written many stage adaptations, which have been performed in England and the United States, including:"Accidental Death of an Anarchist," "The Manchurian Candidate," "The Bluebird of Unhappiness: A Woody Allen Revue," and "Diary of a Somebody," which began at the Royal National Theatre, played the West End, and later toured England. He co-authored the Tony Award-winning "Elaine Stritch at Liberty," which won the 2002 Drama Desk Award for outstanding book of a musical. Lahr, who was the first drama critic to win a Tony Award, is the son of the comedian Bert Lahr, whom he wrote about in his biography "Notes on a Cowardly Lion." He divides his time between New York and London and maintains a Web site at www.johnlahr.com.

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Shermane Billingsley
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Insight
    Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    I read Death of a Salesman in high school and again in college, and I've seen it performed both on and off-Broadway. Remarkably, I knew little about Arthur Miller before reading John Lahr's excellent biography. I'm eager now to see the current production of Death of a Salesman on Broadway given Mr. Lahr's research. There's something exciting about reading the thoughts of a biographer that Arthur Miller thought highly enough of to invite to the cabin where he wrote Death of a Salesman.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • diva1
    4.0 out of 5 stars lots and lots of play analysis
    Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    I guess since there appears to be so much of Arthur Miller’s own experiences woven into his plays, analysis is appropriate. I just felt it was too much and stopped the action of Miller’s life. Since this book is part of the Jewish lives series, i also would have liked more insight into how being Jewish did or did not affect his art.
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  • louise sorel
    5.0 out of 5 stars Get this very important book now!
    Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    John Lahr has written the consummate book on one of the great playwrights of our time. He has
    allowed us inside the mind and heart of Arthur Miller and his complicated life in a way that is
    riveting and revealing. I am in awe of Mr. Lahrs ability to take us inside the life and art of Mr. Miller.
    Very moving. Grab this book for your self and others.
    One person found this helpful
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  • David Curry
    3.0 out of 5 stars All Right, But Slight
    Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2023
    Weighing in at about a third the size of the massive, prize-winning biography of Tennessee Williams he published in 2014, John Lahr’s ARTHUR MILLER: AMERICAN W ITNESS nonetheless ably covers the critical aspects of Miller’s life that shaped his plays. I should note right off that Lahr devotes more attention to discussing the plays than he does to presenting the personal information for which readers generally turn to biographies.

    Lahr does capture the familial, societal and political circumstances behind tMiller’s work, including unpublished radio scripts he wrote to make ends meet during his journeyman years in the late 1930s and early 1940s:

    “Miller managed occasionally to slip political observations into his radio scripts. ‘Isn’t it time to unlock the kitchen and let women out?’ a character says in TOWARD A FARTHER STAR, a play about Amelia Earhart. In BUFFALO BILL DISREMEMBERED, he provided a neat metaphor for the nation’s chronic historical amnesia about the sins of its imperial past: ‘I can’t remember the truth anymore,’ Buffalo Bill says; ‘They even say there’s a feller who’ really Buffalo Bill and that I ain’t.’ In THUNDER FROM THE MOUNTAINS, a radio play about the Mexican peasant leader Benito Juarez who became the country’s president, Miller managed to include, despite the sponsor’s resistance, the uncomfortable fact that Abraham Lincoln helped to arm the Mexican revolutionaries who seized power.“

    Lahr, the son of actor Bert Lahr, also traces Miller’s difficulty contending with the commercialism of the Broadway theater. Had Miller lived longer, It would be interesting to have had his reaction to the trend in recent years, as musicals and revivals more and more dominate Broadway, for the Pulitzer Prize in drama to be awarded to new plays that have not received commercial Broadway, or sometimes even off-Broadway, productions.

    Lahr underlines the role of legendary New York Times drama critic Brooks Atkinson in the commercial success Miller finally achieved in 1947 with ALL MY SONS. Other critics dismissed the play, but Atkinson saw its importance. (When Eugene O’Neill’s even more challenging posthumous play LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT opened on Broadway in 1956, it was Atkinson who memorably wrote in The Times that “it restores the drama to literature and the theatre to art.” That looked pretty impressive at the top of a full-page ad.)

    The book does not feature an abundance of the juicy tidbits I enjoy coming across in biographies, but it does offer a few:

    After the phenomenal success of Miller’s 1949 DEATH OF A SALESMAN, his first wife Mary jokingly suggested that he name his next play, which turned out to be THE CRUCIBLE, DEATH OF A SALEM.

    When Miller was subpoenaed to appear before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956, his soon-to-be second wife Marilyn Monroe told her friend the actress Susan Strasberg, “He’s got to tell them to go f___ themselves, only he can do it in better language.”
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  • Susan B. Barry
    5.0 out of 5 stars Probing the depths
    Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2022
    I am familiar with Lahr's reputation for emotional depth and exquisite prose. He doesn't disappoint! He goes through Miller's life connecting the psyches of Miller and his family, their economic struggles and issues of self-worth, with those characters he immortalizes on stage. Willy Loman brought him lasting fame, but Miller's dogged determination to keep going in spite of setbacks spoke loudly to me. And yes, there's Marilyn Monroe--Lahr delivers a fascinating probe into her turmoil and relationship with Miller; again psyches ultimately reflected on stage, thinly disguised.. Lahr's prose is sublime. A biography hard to fault!
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Lynn Goldberg
    5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT BOOK!
    Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2022
    This is an astonishing and rewarding book. What a life! Miller's plays reflect the tumultuous times in which he lived, as well as his inner struggles. How Lahr captures the period, along with the man is remarkable.
    One person found this helpful
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  • A. Warren
    2.0 out of 5 stars Not a Bio
    Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2022
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    I bought this book because The New Yorker had it on a list of "best books"; big mistake. (The author is a New Yorker theatre critic and so they apparently were helping one of their own.)
    If you are looking for a nice bio of Miller, look elsewhere. The book focuses on his plays with detailed, very detailed, analysis of the plays and how they were influenced by Miller. If you are looking for an analysis to understand why he wrote them as he did, then this is a book for you.
    I gave up on it about1/4 of the way through because I was not looking for the analysis, I wanted a bio of Miller.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Richard West
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good bio + his theatre history.
    Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Needed more information about his plays besides ‘Salesman.”
    One person found this helpful
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