{"product_id":"the-orton-diaries-9780306807336","title":"The Orton Diaries","description":"\"To be young, good-looking, healthy, famous, comparatively rich \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e happy is surely going against nature.\" When Joe Orton (1933-1967) wrote those words in his diary in May 1967, he was being hailed as the greatest comic playwright since Oscar Wilde for his darkly hilarious \u003ci\u003eEntertaining Mr. Sloane\u003c\/i\u003e and the farce hit \u003ci\u003eLoot\u003c\/i\u003e, and was completing \u003ci\u003eWhat the Butler Saw;\u003c\/i\u003e but less than three months later, his longtime companion, Kenneth Halliwell, smashed in Orton's skull with a hammer before killing himself. \u003ci\u003eThe Orton Diaries\u003c\/i\u003e, written during his last eight months, chronicle in a remarkably candid style his outrageously unfettered life: his literary success, capped by an \u003ci\u003eEvening Standard Award\u003c\/i\u003e and overtures from the Beatles; his sexual escapades-at his mother's funeral, with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in Tangiers; and the breakdown of his sixteen-year \"marriage\" to Halliwell, the relationship that transformed and destroyed him. Edited with a superb introduction by John Lahr, \u003ci\u003eThe Orton Diaries \u003c\/i\u003eis his crowning achievement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe plays of \u003cb\u003eJoe Orton\u003c\/b\u003e (1933-1967)--\u003ci\u003eLoot, What the Butler Saw, Entertaining Mr. Sloane\u003c\/i\u003e, and others--rank with Oscar Wilde's as some of the most outrageous and hilarious of our time. He was brutally murdered by his male lover at the peak of his career. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEditor\u003cb\u003e John Lahr\u003c\/b\u003e was the senior drama critic at the\u003ci\u003e New Yorker \u003c\/i\u003efor twenty years. He was the first critic to win a Tony Award, for coauthoring \u003ci\u003eElaine Stritch at Liberty. \u003c\/i\u003eThe author of eighteen books, ranging from fiction to biography, Lahr is best known for \u003ci\u003eNotes on a Cowardly Lion\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e: The Biography of Bert Lahr\u003c\/i\u003e (1969) and \u003ci\u003ePrick Up Your Ears\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e: The Biography of Joe Orton \u003c\/i\u003e(1978).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Da Capo Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50513990975762,"sku":"9780306807336","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_62931ffe-b206-4f54-a87e-8e1ad1bf2235.jpg?v=1730970065","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-orton-diaries-9780306807336","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}