Wendy and the Lost Boys

Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein (2011) by Julie Salamon. This was one of the most enjoyable books I've read this year. Not because Salamon is especially talented; she is a good researcher and a straightforward story-teller. But because of the content, the very extraordinary life that Wendy Wasserstein led. She wrote many plays, but of them all The Heidi Chronicles is especially notable. For this play she won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony. After that, her fortune was made. The "lost boys" of the title seems to refer to the many men, all unsuitable, that she fell in love with. Many were gay, some were married. Many of them fell in love with her, but they could not give her what she wanted -- marriage and a family. Eventually, at the ate of 49, Wasserstein had a child as a single mother. She never did reveal the name of the father, if she knew. Six years later, at 55, she died of cancer. Her obituary ran on the front page of the New York Times. An uncommon life, indeed. Grade: A