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The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir
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About This Book
In 1986, Paul Newman and his closest friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern, began an extraordinary project. Stuart was to compile an oral history, to have Newman's family and friends and those who worked closely with him, talk about the actor's life. And then Newman would work with Stewart and give his side of the story. The only stipulation was that anyone who spoke on the record had to be completely honest. That same stipulation applied to Newman himself. The project lasted five years. The result is an extraordinary memoir, culled from thousands of pages of transcripts. The book is insightful, revealing, surprising. Newman's voice is powerful, sometimes funny, sometimes painful, always meeting that high standard of searing honesty. The additional voices--from childhood friends and Navy buddies, from family members and film and theater collaborators such as Tom Cruise, George Roy Hill, Martin Ritt, and John Huston--that run throughout add richness and color and context to the story Newman is telling. Newman's often traumatic childhood is brilliantly detailed. He talks about his teenage insecurities, his early failures with women, his rise to stardom, his early rivals (Marlon Brando and James Dean), his first marriage, his drinking, his philanthropy, the death of his son Scott, his strong desire for his daughters to know and understand the truth about their father. Perhaps the most moving material in the book centers around his relationship with Joanne Woodward--their love for each other, his dependence on her, the way she shaped him intellectually, emotionally and sexually. The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man is revelatory and introspective, personal and analytical, loving and tender in some places, always complex and profound.
Reviews
"Intimate reflections on an extraordinary life steeped in sadness."
"Readers will want to savor the stories in this oral history-turned-autobiography and undoubtedly be motivated to watch or rewatch Newman's many films."
"This unforgettable and extraordinary memoir, one of the best and most compelling books of 2022, is a breathtakingly honest mea culpa from a complicated man striving to excavate his demons; according to Newman's daughter Clea, who writes the memoir's afterword, he succeeded in his final decades."
"When we meet our heroes on the page, we want them to have something thoughtful to say—to make good on the admiration their outsize performances have won."
"Newman's story unfolds in a humble, sometimes humorous narrative voice ..."
"It can grow a little monotonous ..."
"Nor, I feared, was it the book that David Rosenthal envisioned ..."
"A humble and candid look into the life of a celebrated but often misunderstood man."
"Movie stars, bemused by their own magnified faces, don't usually have much interest in self-analysis."
"In many ways this memoir is incomplete, but it's never not psychologically fascinating — a compelling insight into how profoundly right Philip Larkin was about the power of bad parents."
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