Buried Child

Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize winning play is set in a farmhouse somewhere in the American West, inhabited by a raving, alcoholic grandfather, a sanctimonious grandmother who goes on drinking bouts with the local minister; and their sons Tilden once an American footballer, now a hulking semi-idiot; and Bradley, who has lost one of his legs to a chain saw. Into their midst comes Vince, Tilden’s son none of them recognises or remembers, and his girlfriend Shelly, who cannot comprehend the madness to which she is suddenly introduced. The family harbours a dark secret: years earlier the grandfather, Dodge, had buried an unwanted newborn baby in an undisclosed spot, creating a cloud of guilt which is dispelled only when Tilden unearths the child’s mummified remains and carries it upstairs to his mother. His act purges the family, at last, of its infamy, and suggests the possibility of a new beginning under Vince, whose estrangement from the others has spared him the taint of their sin.

Sam Shepard is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of more than forty-five plays. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection "Great Dream of Heaven," " "and he has also written the story collection "Cruising Paradise," " "two collections of prose pieces, "Motel Chronicles "and "Hawk Moon," " "and "Rolling Thunder Logbook," " "a diary of Bob Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Review tour. As an actor he has appeared in more than thirty films, including "Days of Heaven," " Crimes of the Heart," " Steel Magnolias," " The Pelican Brief," " Snow Falling on Cedars," " All the Pretty Horses," " Black Hawk Down," " "and "The Notebook."" "He received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for his performance in "The Right Stuff." His screenplay for "Paris, Texas" won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, and he wrote and directed the film "Far North "in 1988 and co-wrote and starred in Wim Wenders' "Don’t Come Knocking "in 2005. Shepard’s plays, eleven of which have won Obie Awards, include "The God of Hell," " The Late Henry Moss," "Simpatico," "Curse of the Starving Class," " True West," " Fool for Love," and "A Lie of the Mind," " "which won a New York Drama Desk Award. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Shepard received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992, and in 1994 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. He lives in New York. "From the Trade Paperback edition."