150 word review: TENNESSEE WILLIAMS: MAD PILGRIMAGE OF THE FLESH by John Lahr

Don't be put off by the monumental size of Lahr's biography of the landmark playwright, this truly is a magnificently involving and engrossing read.

Lahr opens with the opening night of THE GLASS MENAGERIE on Broadway which launched Williams as the most promising post-war American playwright, and through detailed analysis of his subsequent successes and, in later years, increasing failures, also reveals the troubled man behind the work.

Lahr draws fascinating parallels between the private life and public writing showing Williams to be the most autobiographical of playwrights, wrestling with family and lovers through his fictional characters.

Williams emerges as a troubled man whose self-destructive relationships with their closest to him - lover Frank Merlo, director Elia Kazan, agent Audrey Wood - make him hard to admire but under Lahr's forensic gaze easier to understand.

With unprecedented access to archives of letters and diaries, Lahr has written an unforgettable biography.