Jeremy Gerard
A must-read for anyone interested in the musical theater.
— New York Magazine
Mel Gussow
An intriguing biography. —The New York Times
Newsweek
A major biography. Secrest spent dozens of hours iinterviewing Sondheim and he talks with unprecedented candor . . .Even walking Sondheim encyclopedias will find news here.
Patrick J. Smith
Secrest's look at the man and his works is a valuable guide to understanding and appreciating one of our greatest musical-theater artist. -- Opera News
Publishers Weekly
. . .An incomparable peek into the genesis of such musicals as 'West Side Story,' 'Gypsy,' 'A Little Night Music' and 'Passion'. . .
Booknews
Veteran biographer Secrest presents a full-scale life of the contemporary American composer and lyricist who works in musical theater. She draws on conversations with Sondheim himself and interviews with his friends, family, collaborators, and lovers to portray both his artistic career and his private life. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Jeremy Gerard
A must-read for anyone interested in the musical theater. -- New York Magazine
The New Yorker
An unanswered question lingers at the close of this brisk by revealing biography, written with considerable cooperation from its subject and his friends. The composer-lyricist's personal demons -- his overbearing mother, his intolerance of his homosexuality -- have darkened the tone of a brilliant series of American musicals, each of which is richly described. Sondheim has finally allowed a measure of contentment to come into his private life, but Secrest seems reluctant to make the obvious conclusion: that his recent work has lost some of his usual irony and complexity.
Kirkus Reviews
Like his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein, Sondheim has vehement detractors and vociferous defenders; Secrest is quite clearly in the latter group. Born in New York in 1930, Sondheim is the son of well-to-do German Jews. But when their marriage disintegrated while Stephen was still a child, the boy found himself a pawn in his mother's machinations. As Secrest makes clear, the scars from that experience stayed with Sondheim for a long time, occasionally finding their way into his creative work. Despite personal travails as a youth, Sondheim enjoyed a pretty nearly unbroken road to theatrical success, being virtually adopted by the Hammersteins, making his Broadway debut at 27 with the lyrics for 'West Side Story' and not actually having a failure until his second show as sole composer-lyricist, the legendary 'Anyone Can Whistle.' Secrest has had the great advantage of cooperation from her subject. More than any previous work on Sondheim, this book has the benefit of early reminiscences and access to its subject's apprentice work all the way back to his high-school years. Yet Sondheim remains a somewhat emotionally distant figure, not surprising since his guardedness seems to be one of his most prominent traits. Regrettably, although there is much material here to fascinate both Sondheim addicts and theater fans, Secrest fails to organize it coherently. Although there are some engaging stories about the creation of such classics as 'Company', 'Pacific Overtures', and 'Sunday in the Park with George, the book rambles with a ramshackle thrown-together feeling and with awkward run-on sentences. And not surprisingly given that her subject is still working hard at 68, Secrest's effort doesn't so muchend as stop abruptly.
