Cornell Woolrich was called the Poe of the 20th century and the poet of ts shadows. He lived a life of such deep despair and terror that he could do nothing with his experiences but put them between the covers of some of the century's finest novels of suspense.
Born the child of a broken marriage in 1903, Woolrich spent his childhood in revolutionary Mexico, coming to New York in his teens. While still a student at Columbia, he sold the first of several mainstream novels, which led critics to compare him with F. Scott Fitzgerald.
During the 1930s and '40s, when he was acclaimed as the preeminent author of American suspense fiction, Woolrich lived with his mother in an apartment-hotel near Harlem. After her death in 1957, Woolrich became a self-imposed prisoner in a series of lonely hotel rooms until his death in 1968. Few attended his funeral, and his million-dollar fortune was left to Columbia University to establish a scholarship fund.
Though he perceived himself as a failure, Woolrich's work was a critical and financial success. His novels, such as The Bride Wore Black, Phantom Lady and Deadline at Dawn, inspired the French roman noir and film noir. His novella "Rear Window" became one of Alfred Hitchcock's most acclaimed films.
In this authoritative study, Edgar Award-winner Francis M. Nevins, Jr., explores the doom-haunted life and world of America's master of suspense.
"First You Dream, Then You Die" is a compelling tour of Cornell Woolrich's life—a tragic existence that resulted in a superbly sustained fictional output. Francis M. Nevins, Jr., intelligently explores that life and brilliantly ties it into the words Woolrich put on paper. You can palpably feel the agony in Woolrich and his work; the literature is deftly analyzed. First You Dream, Then You Die is a marvelous biography that leaves the reader haunted—and primed to read much more Woolrich." —James Ellroy, author of The Black Dahlia and The Big Nowhere
- Autor: Francis M. Nevins jr
- Kategoria: biografia, autobiografia, pamiętnik
- Język: angielski
- ISBN: 9780892962976
- Data wydania: 1988-09-01
- Liczba stron: 623
- Ocena: 0,0
- Wydawnictwo: Mysterious Press
