Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0684852691, Hardcover)

Of what do we write when we write of love? In Bob Smith's case, it is Shakespeare's poems and plays. Hamlet's Dresser braids two strands of his life into a modest, heartbreaking, and soaringly affirmative memoir. A bookish, lonely child, his crush on the Bard's work became love when, as an alienated teenager, he joined the American Shakespeare Theatre as Hamlet's dresser. In time he would dress other characters, perform in small roles, become a coach and a watcher, and eventually lead senior citizens' groups in Shakespeare-appreciation courses. But this ecstatic marriage was haunted by his sad, contorted childhood: an increasingly dysfunctional mother, a distant father, and Caroline, his profoundly retarded sister. "Art," he writes, "can be a brutal thing, not just some decoration placed over the truth, but the truth itself." Smith's prose is bluntly ineffable: a rundown theatre looks like "Miss Havisham's bride cake" and the first teacher who didn't like him was "Miss Shumaker. It was right after I stopped pleasing everybody." The book is thick with short passages from Shakespeare. Placed in perfect context, they leap from the pages, abrupt as panoramic pop-ups. --H. O'Billovich

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0684852705, Paperback)

The true story of a boy whose life was saved by literature, Hamlet's Dresser is a portrait of a person made whole by art. Bob Smith's childhood was a fragile and lonely one, spent largely caring for his handicapped sister, Carolyn. But at age ten, his local librarian gave him a copy of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and it transformed him. In Bob's first look at Shakespeare's penetrating language -- "In sooth I know not why I am so sad" -- he had found a window through which to view the world. Years later, when the American Shakespeare Festival moved into Stratford and Smith was hired as Hamlet's dresser, his life's passion took shape.

Blending tragedy and comedy, Smith gracefully weaves together his childhood memories with his experiences backstage and teaching the plays. The result is a gorgeous, tender, infectious book about the restorative powers of literature and art.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0671018248, Paperback)

A vivid and lyrical memoir of a man damaged in childhood but redeemed by Shakespeare. 'Written with such delicate and sensitive humanity that laughter and tears are constantly interchanging. What a lovely man, with a golden gift for words and a deep understanding of human frailties and fears. The Shakespearean motif is superbly handled, never tricksy or clever but true and moving. I found it inspirational; it made me look at those around me more sympathetically - especially the aged. His compassion touched me deeply'. Derek Jacobi Bob Smith was a fragile boy from a difficult household that was presided over by an unstable, depressive mother who depended on him, an unsupportive, unavailable father and a severely disabled, beautiful sister who lived at home, largely cared for by Bob. At the age of ten he stumbled upon a line from THE MERCHANT OF VENICE - 'in sooth I know not why I am so sad' - recognized himself in this poetic, melancholy language, and found a buoy that would keep him afloat for the rest of his tumultuous life. He now knows every single Shakespeare play inside and out and every week Bob teaches the play to over six hundred senior citizens. A sad, funny and inspiring account of how one man's life was saved by Shakespeare, this will be the memoir of the year.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0786124008, Audio Cassette)

Bob Smith grew up in a town named for Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford, Connecticut. His troubled childhood was spent in a struggle to help his devastated parents care for his severely retarded sister. But at age ten, Smith stumbled onto a line from The Merchant of Venice and found a window through which to view the world. A few years later, the American Shakespeare Festival moved into Stratford, and Smith became Hamlet’s dresser. As he watched the plays from backstage, his life’s passion took shape. He left home to travel with the Shakespeare Festival, and in the decades since, without a college credit to his name, he has taught the plays in universities and acting schools and prisons. For the past several years, he has probed the texts with thousands of the elderly in senior centers all over Manhattan. Here, in gorgeous, tender, and lyrical prose, Smith tells the story of a life shaped by poetry. Melding tragedy and comedy, he gracefully weaves together the stories of his bittersweet childhood, struggling to help his parents care for his severely retarded sister, his early experience as Hamlet’s dresser for the Shakespeare festival, his poignant experiences teaching Shakespeare to seniors, and dozens of illuminating scenes from Shakespeare’s plays.