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Books

Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press

Madame Melville and The General from America

by Richard Nelson

“Nelson revels in and shrewdly manipulates the conventions of the memory play in ways that are hard to resist.” —Ben Brantley, The New York Times

  • Imprint Grove Paperback
  • Page Count 192
  • Publication Date January 22, 2002
  • ISBN-13 978-0-8021-3844-6
  • Dimensions 5.5" x 8.25"
  • US List Price $14.00

About The Book

Long an associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, American playwright Richard Nelson has been praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. He is, as The International Herald Tribune declared, “among the greatest dramatists of his generation.”

Madame Melville, set in Paris in 1966 before that city exploded in protest, presents the story of a fifteen-year-old American, Carl, and his beautiful teacher, Claudie Melville. In the course of one night and one day, the boy discovers an unimagined world where beauty, loneliness, sex, and art are one. The Daily Telegraph praised Madame Melville as “a play about art, music, friendship and the irrecoverable, unforgettable moment when an adolescent realizes that the world is full of wonder.”

Praise

“Nelson revels in and shrewdly manipulates the conventions of the memory play in ways that are hard to resist.” —Ben Brantley, The New York Times

The General from America is a rich, rare and remarkable triumph on the stage. . . . In play after play, Nelson has established himself as that contemporary stage rarity, a civilized, urbane, literate, acidic ironist in an age of urban thuggery.” —Sheridan Morley, The Spectator