The One Inside

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer: his first work of long fiction--a novel of memory, mystery, death, and life, following a man from the landscapes of California to the deserts of Santa Fe to a film set in Oklahoma, from childhood to the present, encountering the people, the moments of art and violence, that have shaped him.

The One Inside is a searing, extraordinarily evocative narrative in which an actor/writer explores and revisits key moments and people from his life--all the while attempting to negotiate with a young woman who threatens to publish recordings of their darkly revealing phone conversations. In his dreams and in visions he sees his late father, sometimes in miniature, sometimes flying planes, sometimes at war. In his childhood memories he sees his father's young girlfriend, with whom the narrator also became involved, setting into motion a tragedy that continues to haunt him. His complex interiority is filtered through beautiful descriptions of landscapes across America as he travels, works on his art, and shows us the world of filmmaking. The rhythms of theater, the language of poetry, and the scope of a novel combine in this stunning meditation on the nature of memory and experience, at once celebratory, haunting, funny, surreal, and unforgettable.

SAM SHEPARD is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of more than fifty-five plays and three story collections. As an actor, he has appeared in more than sixty films, and received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for The Right Stuff. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and has been inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.