The Rest of the Story (A Life Completed) By Arthur Laurents

The Rest of the Story (A Life Completed). Edited by David Saint. Applause Books. Hardcover. 210 pages. Published by Applause Books.

Best known for the hit musicals West Side Story and Gypsy, Arthur Laurents began his career writing socially minded plays such as Home of the Brave and Time of the Cuckoo. He also garnered impressive credits as a screenwriter (The Way We Were) and stage director (La Cage aux Folles). Such a varied professional life makes for absorbing reading, as unleashed in his lively 2000 autobiography, Original Story By.

Laurents passed away early in 2011 but not before writing The Rest of the Story, in which he revealed all that had happened in his life since Original Story By, filled with the wisdom he gained in growing older and a new perspective brought on by Laurents' experience of deep personal loss, including the death of his longtime companion, Tom Hatcher.

Laurents' style remains engrossing and brutally honest. His voice is still highly intelligent, loving, generous, and gracious. He remained committed to his artistic vision to the very end, as captured in the epilogue, which he completed only days before his death. The book ends with a loving and insightful coda by Laurents' good friend and the editor of this book, David Saint.