David Mamet
Author of Glengarry Glen Ross: A Play
About the Author
David Mamet, November 30, 1947 - David Mamet was born on November 30, 1947 in Flossmoor, Illinois. He attended Goddard College in Vermont and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York. He began his career as an actor and a director, but soon turned to playwriting. He won acclaim in show more 1976 with three Off-Broadway plays, "The Duck Variations," "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" and "American Buffalo." His work became known for it's strong male characters and the description of the decline of morality in the world. In 1984, Mamet received the Pulitzer Prize in Literature for his play, "Glengarry Glen Ross." In 1981, before he received the Pulitzer, Mamet tried his hand at screenwriting. he started by adapting "The Postman Always Rings Twice," and then adapting his own "Glengarry Glen Ross" as well as writing "The Untouchables" and Wag the Dog." He also taught at Goddard College, Yale Drama School and New York University. Mamet won the Jefferson Award in 1974, the Obie Award in 1976 and 1983, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1977 and 1984, the Outer Circle Award in 1978, the Society of West End Theater Award in 1983, The Pulitzer Prize in 1984, The Dramatists Guild Hall-Warriner Award in 1984, and American Academy Award in 1986 and a Tony Award in 1987. He is considered to be one of the greatest artists in his field. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Brigitte Lacombe
Works by David Mamet
Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (2003) — Author — 60 copies
Plays: "Duck Variations", "Sexual Perversity in Chicago", "Squirrels", "American Buffalo", "The Water Engine",… (1994) 50 copies
Five Television Plays: A Waitress in Yellowstone; Bradford; The Museum of Science and Industry Story; A Wasted Weekend;… (1994) 27 copies
David Mamet Plays: 2 "Reunion", "Dark Pony", "A Life in the Theatre", "The Woods", "Lakeboat", "Edmond" (Methuen World… (1996) 22 copies
Uncle Vanya: Adapted from the play by Anton Chekhov [1991] — Author — 18 copies
Sexual Perversity in Chicago 6 copies
Yes But So What 4 copies
Twelve Angry Men 3 copies
Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood (2023) 3 copies
Phil Spector 2 copies
Epilogue 2 copies
Vermont 2 copies
The Power Outage 2 copies
Mr. Happiness 2 copies
Cross Patch 2 copies
Two Conversations 2 copies
Two Scenes 2 copies
Conversations with the Spirit World 2 copies
Pint's a Pound the World Around 2 copies
Dowsing 2 copies
Deer Dogs 2 copies
Maple Sugaring 2 copies
Morris and Joe 2 copies
The Dog 2 copies
Film Crew 2 copies
Four A.M. 2 copies
In the Mall 2 copies
Food 2 copies
Businessmen 2 copies
All Men Are Whores: An Inquiry 2 copies
Columbus Avenue 2 copies
Litko: A Dramatic Monologue 2 copies
Shoeshine 2 copies
A Sermon 2 copies
Cold 2 copies
In Old Vermont 2 copies
Steve McQueen 2 copies
A Life With No Joy In It 2 copies
The Hat 2 copies
Doctor 2 copies
Prologue: American Twilight 2 copies
No One Will Be Immune 1 copy
Monologue 1 copy
Hanglage Meerblick 1 copy
Almost Done 1 copy
Secret Names 1 copy
The Luftmensch 1 copy
Dark Pony 1 copy
Reunion 1 copy
Bradford 1 copy
Prairie du Chien 1 copy
We Will Take You There 1 copy
6 Action Movies [DVD] — Director — 1 copy
A Waitress in Yellowstone 1 copy
A Wasted Weekend 1 copy
Two Enthusiasts 1 copy
Sunday Afternoon 1 copy
L.A. Sketches 1 copy
Keep your Pantheon [audio] 1 copy
Jolly 1 copy
The Unit (Seasons 1-3) 1 copy
Joseph Dintenfass 1 copy
Speed the Plow: Screenplay 1 copy
Dodge 1 copy
A Perfect Mermaid 1 copy
A Scene - Australia 1 copy
The Diary of Anne Frank 1 copy
Fish 1 copy
The Joke Code 1 copy
TOPLU OYUNLARI 1 1 copy
Associated Works
Writers on Writing, 2: More Collected Essays from the New York Times (2003) — Contributor — 183 copies
The Actor's Book of Contemporary Stage Monologues: More Than 150 Monologues from More Than 70 Playwrights (1987) — Contributor — 175 copies
An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine (2000) — Contributor — 129 copies
The Actor's Book of Scenes from New Plays: 70 Scenes for Two Actors, from Today's Hottest Playwrights (1988) — Contributor — 78 copies
Here Lies My Heart: Essays on Why We Marry, Why We Don't, and What We Find There (A Beacon Anthology) (1999) — Contributor — 62 copies
Genesis as It Is Written: Contemporary Writers on Our First Stories (1996) — Contributor — 59 copies
Lapham's Quarterly - Lines of Work: Volume IV, Number 2, Spring 2011 (2011) — Contributor — 29 copies
A Clockwork Orange / Glengarry Glen Ross / Massage / Kvetch / Macbeth / The Maids / Disco Pigs (2000) — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Mamet, David
- Legal name
- Mamet, David Alan (birth name)
- Birthdate
- 1947-11-30
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Places of residence
- Flossmoor, Illinois, USA
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Plainfield, Vermont, USA
New York, New York, USA
Santa Monica, California, USA - Education
- Goddard College
- Occupations
- playwright
screenwriter - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature, 1994)
Atlantic Theater Company (founding member) - Awards and honors
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Literature, 1986)
Pulitzer Prize (1984)
American Theater Hall of Fame (2002)
PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award (2010)
Members
Reviews
First off, reading this book is like reading someone's private journal; the thoughts are broken up, there are incongruous jumps between what are laid out as sections of the same chapter; ideas are just thrown out with minimal or no argument or development. Not what one is looking for in an argumentative or persuasive book. On the other hand, if you want to get a peek inside Mamet's head, this is for you.
Okay, now on to the review of the content.
He comes right out and identifies himself in the first three pages: a Liberal who, in late mid-life, discovered that life is made of trade-offs and therefore became a conservative. Immediately, for me, the alarms are going off: here is a guy who claims that only in his 50's or 60's did it occurred to him that, “surprise!” life is made of trade-offs and we can't have everything; by extension, we're left to believe that as a “Liberal” he must have believed was that there were no trade-offs and we could indeed have everything.
Next follow a slew of “musings with titles” that we are to take, apparently, as chapters or essays. He fills this with many curious assertions that will sound familiar if you've listened to Fox or Limbaugh.
1. “Liberals hate capitalism.” Full stop.
2. A running screed, spread across a few of his titled musings, that can be summed up as, “Young Liberals suck. Liberal Arts degrees suck. FILM SCHOOLS SUCK.” (He really, really, really does not like film schools.)
3. In particular, “Young Liberals” (he capitalizes that repeatedly) have been, and are now, ruining our country because they hate (economic) freedom, America (-ness..?), and Israel. He softens this here and there by downgrading, “hate freedom,” to something along the lines of, “liberals want the same things conservatives want, but are just hopelessly confused about how to get them.”
Who precisely are these people he hates/pities/dismisses? Apparently they are uneducated and lazy, naïve and clueless, busy doing their yoga, getting their houses feng shui'd, and standing around watching their immigrant gardeners sweat under the Sun while moaning about how it is so unfair they don't get paid more, while faithfully recycling their cans and bottles in a desperate attempt to fill the void left by their rejection of responsibility/authority/God. This is not hyperbole (on my part). Mamet actually writes this.
Do these people even exist? What “Young” person owns a house, complete with gardeners and interior decorators, while going to school and being unemployed and, presumable, otherwise living a life of dissipation? Perhaps in David Mamet's world, this is a reality; but in that case he is not impugning liberalism or Liberalism, but some Mamet construction that simply shares the name Liberalism. Perhaps in the circles he runs in, this is happening (*cough* *cough* looking at the Mamet kids and their friends.) But not anywhere I've been.
In any case, these 20 and 30-somethings have been exerting their terrible power by... actually, that is also not clear. They way he describes them they would seem to unable to even feed themselves. But, as it would seem he has particularly singled out people that have become adults only in the last decade or, at the most two decades, one must assume they not only overcame their obvious disabilities, but also have access to a time machine... or that these people formed a cabal while still in diapers... or something. It's almost like Mamet is blaming today's “Young Liberals” as a way of not blaming... I dunno, just to make up some random numbers, people who at this point, roughly 50, 60, 70?
Moving on a bit, we also find out that liberals are all God hating, but Nature loving because Nature is the new God; as is, confusingly, Government, Equality, and -yet more confusingly- Liberalism itself. Unless Liberalism is just a new religion. I forget. At times his paragraphs are koan-like... or simply nonsense.
Next, we move on to finding out that Mamet hates bureaucracies. A lot. (When Mamet doesn't like something, he really goes all in.) Government, management, labor (presumably organized labor?), safety inspectors, and I'm sure more that I am forgetting; in any case, all of them are leeches, all only existing to perpetuate their own existence. I'm not sure who, in broad strokes, this leaves, but apparently engineers (but only good ones), writers (of course) and set designers are okay. Again, I'm not making this up, that's his list. Also, students who are NOT LIBERAL ARTS MAJORS maybe get a pass.
I suspect he really means to give a pass to some “Rand-ian” class of creators. And he really does seem to mean this in a Randian way; the innovator, the creator, the unfettered striver is the pinnacle of human development, etc.. Of course, he several times tells us that, yes, we need government for roads, police, military, and a handful of other activities; presumably these people would not belong to any bureaucracy, and the above mentioned strivers would not either.
In other words, we will all exist as small, autonomous teams and individuals. Roads, military, police and a few other functions are still to be provided by the (nonexistent) (non-bureaucratic) government (run on, as we later find out many pages later, a 0% tax rate: since lower taxes raise earnings, and higher earnings raise tax revenues, having no taxes at all will generate the most tax rev... wait... hrmm. Oh, wait, nevermind. My 3rd grade arithmetic was bothering me, but I'm all better now.) Unfettered growth and prosperity will be provided by entrepreneurs; in teams of 4 or less, of course, since management and labor are THE HATED BUREAUCRACY.
And of course, it goes without saying, no one will have heard of David Mamet because *?*$ {@&*! LIBERAL ART MAJORS.
Sigh. I wish I was making this up (well, the last bit I did.)
To recapitulate, since I'm letting loose with a bit of stream-of-consciousness myself:
1. Mamet only just now discovered that life is trade-offs and this SHOCK! has shown him the error of his “liberal” ways.
2. Needless to say, having defined Liberalism to be the kind of doe-eyed naivete that would embarrass a Care Bear, Mamet finds tearing it apart is fairly easy.
3. Then, foisting this belief onto others, Mamet invents from whole cloth an entire generation whiling away their time in film school making art pornos, with barely enough time left to split between complaining to their interior decorators, eating ice-cream, and spitting on the grave of Jefferson while writing checks to Hezbollah (presumably from their trust funds.)
4. One wonders, given this, why anyone under the age of 45 is complaining at all, what with the feng shui and peeled grapes and all: David Mamet doesn't deign to address this.
5. Clearly, David Mamet needs to get out more.
Mamet is really angry at the 1960's and 70's, the excesses and absurdities of some strains of Liberalism of these decades. Mamet is angry at the Roosevelts and Taft (and maybe Freud.) And he is angry at film school, and, at this point is so angry he is making the Hulk jealous. David Mamet wants the kids to get off the goddamned lawn.
That said, I am a bit sad: he does broach, in moments of clarity, some issues that deserve to be discussed. Some larger issues like, “What exactly is meant by Equality? How much is enough? How do we know when we've gotten there, and what do we measure in order to know that we've gotten there?” These, and questions like these, are real, difficult, and worthy of serious consideration; and I don't think they are often approached by people of a more leftist leaning; there is a presumption that “equality” is worth whatever it takes, whatever that might mean, and whatever exactly equality means. I think that is a fair point.
But those questions are all buried in a angry prose of a guy who -again- only just now figured out that life is made of trade-offs. This is from a guy who lauds plumbers and farmers, but who apparently doesn't get out enough to realize that there might be more to Liberals than his daughter's “heiress” classmates and his friends' “doyen” dinner circles, and that there might be more to the “Liberal Young” than evidenced by the 40 or going-on-50 year old snapshot he has in his head.
This from guy who hates social studies because it is indoctrination, which the schools should not be doing, because culture can only be learned in the family, because only in the family can we learn morals, moral reasoning, and the application of justice... which you have no right to apply in law because games would suck without rules, which is why if you cheat in business maybe you can get a pass, but you should be ostracize anyone who would cheat in a game of poker. Oh, and despite all those platitudes, families are really truly valuable because of their economic impact. Which is why you can't have gay marriage. (Is your head spinning yet?)
The amount of illogic deployed in this book is, literally, dizzying.
Ignoring all that, the book, for me can be paraphrased, emotionally at least, in one passage: Mamet is enjoying a visit to an art gallery and is Disgusted! Angered! Revolted! to see a lady not throw out her paper plate, but instead fold it up and put it in her purse, presumably to reuse. Obviously, he concludes, she is a Liberal desperately placating her untenable nihilism. (Again, that is not sarcasm on my part; this is paraphrasing what Mamet writes.)
Think about this. Run through this yourself. Really ponder what kind of person (a) even notices someone else doing something like this, (b) has any kind of emotional reaction whatsoever to it, much less a reaction of being disgusted and angered, (c) concludes that this is yet more proof of the vast conspiracy against righteousness, and (d) writes about it in a book and publishes it.
That's who wrote this book, and that's what, God help me, I just spent a part of my life reading.… (more)
Okay, now on to the review of the content.
He comes right out and identifies himself in the first three pages: a Liberal who, in late mid-life, discovered that life is made of trade-offs and therefore became a conservative. Immediately, for me, the alarms are going off: here is a guy who claims that only in his 50's or 60's did it occurred to him that, “surprise!” life is made of trade-offs and we can't have everything; by extension, we're left to believe that as a “Liberal” he must have believed was that there were no trade-offs and we could indeed have everything.
Next follow a slew of “musings with titles” that we are to take, apparently, as chapters or essays. He fills this with many curious assertions that will sound familiar if you've listened to Fox or Limbaugh.
1. “Liberals hate capitalism.” Full stop.
2. A running screed, spread across a few of his titled musings, that can be summed up as, “Young Liberals suck. Liberal Arts degrees suck. FILM SCHOOLS SUCK.” (He really, really, really does not like film schools.)
3. In particular, “Young Liberals” (he capitalizes that repeatedly) have been, and are now, ruining our country because they hate (economic) freedom, America (-ness..?), and Israel. He softens this here and there by downgrading, “hate freedom,” to something along the lines of, “liberals want the same things conservatives want, but are just hopelessly confused about how to get them.”
Who precisely are these people he hates/pities/dismisses? Apparently they are uneducated and lazy, naïve and clueless, busy doing their yoga, getting their houses feng shui'd, and standing around watching their immigrant gardeners sweat under the Sun while moaning about how it is so unfair they don't get paid more, while faithfully recycling their cans and bottles in a desperate attempt to fill the void left by their rejection of responsibility/authority/God. This is not hyperbole (on my part). Mamet actually writes this.
Do these people even exist? What “Young” person owns a house, complete with gardeners and interior decorators, while going to school and being unemployed and, presumable, otherwise living a life of dissipation? Perhaps in David Mamet's world, this is a reality; but in that case he is not impugning liberalism or Liberalism, but some Mamet construction that simply shares the name Liberalism. Perhaps in the circles he runs in, this is happening (*cough* *cough* looking at the Mamet kids and their friends.) But not anywhere I've been.
In any case, these 20 and 30-somethings have been exerting their terrible power by... actually, that is also not clear. They way he describes them they would seem to unable to even feed themselves. But, as it would seem he has particularly singled out people that have become adults only in the last decade or, at the most two decades, one must assume they not only overcame their obvious disabilities, but also have access to a time machine... or that these people formed a cabal while still in diapers... or something. It's almost like Mamet is blaming today's “Young Liberals” as a way of not blaming... I dunno, just to make up some random numbers, people who at this point, roughly 50, 60, 70?
Moving on a bit, we also find out that liberals are all God hating, but Nature loving because Nature is the new God; as is, confusingly, Government, Equality, and -yet more confusingly- Liberalism itself. Unless Liberalism is just a new religion. I forget. At times his paragraphs are koan-like... or simply nonsense.
Next, we move on to finding out that Mamet hates bureaucracies. A lot. (When Mamet doesn't like something, he really goes all in.) Government, management, labor (presumably organized labor?), safety inspectors, and I'm sure more that I am forgetting; in any case, all of them are leeches, all only existing to perpetuate their own existence. I'm not sure who, in broad strokes, this leaves, but apparently engineers (but only good ones), writers (of course) and set designers are okay. Again, I'm not making this up, that's his list. Also, students who are NOT LIBERAL ARTS MAJORS maybe get a pass.
I suspect he really means to give a pass to some “Rand-ian” class of creators. And he really does seem to mean this in a Randian way; the innovator, the creator, the unfettered striver is the pinnacle of human development, etc.. Of course, he several times tells us that, yes, we need government for roads, police, military, and a handful of other activities; presumably these people would not belong to any bureaucracy, and the above mentioned strivers would not either.
In other words, we will all exist as small, autonomous teams and individuals. Roads, military, police and a few other functions are still to be provided by the (nonexistent) (non-bureaucratic) government (run on, as we later find out many pages later, a 0% tax rate: since lower taxes raise earnings, and higher earnings raise tax revenues, having no taxes at all will generate the most tax rev... wait... hrmm. Oh, wait, nevermind. My 3rd grade arithmetic was bothering me, but I'm all better now.) Unfettered growth and prosperity will be provided by entrepreneurs; in teams of 4 or less, of course, since management and labor are THE HATED BUREAUCRACY.
And of course, it goes without saying, no one will have heard of David Mamet because *?*$ {@&*! LIBERAL ART MAJORS.
Sigh. I wish I was making this up (well, the last bit I did.)
To recapitulate, since I'm letting loose with a bit of stream-of-consciousness myself:
1. Mamet only just now discovered that life is trade-offs and this SHOCK! has shown him the error of his “liberal” ways.
2. Needless to say, having defined Liberalism to be the kind of doe-eyed naivete that would embarrass a Care Bear, Mamet finds tearing it apart is fairly easy.
3. Then, foisting this belief onto others, Mamet invents from whole cloth an entire generation whiling away their time in film school making art pornos, with barely enough time left to split between complaining to their interior decorators, eating ice-cream, and spitting on the grave of Jefferson while writing checks to Hezbollah (presumably from their trust funds.)
4. One wonders, given this, why anyone under the age of 45 is complaining at all, what with the feng shui and peeled grapes and all: David Mamet doesn't deign to address this.
5. Clearly, David Mamet needs to get out more.
Mamet is really angry at the 1960's and 70's, the excesses and absurdities of some strains of Liberalism of these decades. Mamet is angry at the Roosevelts and Taft (and maybe Freud.) And he is angry at film school, and, at this point is so angry he is making the Hulk jealous. David Mamet wants the kids to get off the goddamned lawn.
That said, I am a bit sad: he does broach, in moments of clarity, some issues that deserve to be discussed. Some larger issues like, “What exactly is meant by Equality? How much is enough? How do we know when we've gotten there, and what do we measure in order to know that we've gotten there?” These, and questions like these, are real, difficult, and worthy of serious consideration; and I don't think they are often approached by people of a more leftist leaning; there is a presumption that “equality” is worth whatever it takes, whatever that might mean, and whatever exactly equality means. I think that is a fair point.
But those questions are all buried in a angry prose of a guy who -again- only just now figured out that life is made of trade-offs. This is from a guy who lauds plumbers and farmers, but who apparently doesn't get out enough to realize that there might be more to Liberals than his daughter's “heiress” classmates and his friends' “doyen” dinner circles, and that there might be more to the “Liberal Young” than evidenced by the 40 or going-on-50 year old snapshot he has in his head.
This from guy who hates social studies because it is indoctrination, which the schools should not be doing, because culture can only be learned in the family, because only in the family can we learn morals, moral reasoning, and the application of justice... which you have no right to apply in law because games would suck without rules, which is why if you cheat in business maybe you can get a pass, but you should be ostracize anyone who would cheat in a game of poker. Oh, and despite all those platitudes, families are really truly valuable because of their economic impact. Which is why you can't have gay marriage. (Is your head spinning yet?)
The amount of illogic deployed in this book is, literally, dizzying.
Ignoring all that, the book, for me can be paraphrased, emotionally at least, in one passage: Mamet is enjoying a visit to an art gallery and is Disgusted! Angered! Revolted! to see a lady not throw out her paper plate, but instead fold it up and put it in her purse, presumably to reuse. Obviously, he concludes, she is a Liberal desperately placating her untenable nihilism. (Again, that is not sarcasm on my part; this is paraphrasing what Mamet writes.)
Think about this. Run through this yourself. Really ponder what kind of person (a) even notices someone else doing something like this, (b) has any kind of emotional reaction whatsoever to it, much less a reaction of being disgusted and angered, (c) concludes that this is yet more proof of the vast conspiracy against righteousness, and (d) writes about it in a book and publishes it.
That's who wrote this book, and that's what, God help me, I just spent a part of my life reading.… (more)
I wanted to give in-between 3 and 4 stars. Mostly brilliant. I was in awe of the dialogue. The ending is weak and I often notice in plays in an effort to keep characters to a minimum that a couple of key characters that are dicussed never show up and would have been great additions. The main characters discuss having a seance with people who don't appear. I think it could have been hilarious if they had. The Irish maid is awesome. Love her comments and how rude the other characters are to her.
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The main issue here is that we are more than 100 pages in until the actual plot of the novel begins to truly unfold. Neither the characters nor the dialogue are enough to really compel the reader forward to that point--unless one is just interested in the scene. As a person who loves history and Chicago the city, I had no major issues doing that, but I imagine others could be annoyed.
Also, this is neither a thriller nor a true mystery (the solution isn't strictly possible until the end, when the protagonist knows and the narration simply reveals it as a fait accompli). As such, it's hard to figure the genre of this novel and that may be disappointing some of the readers who came expecting X and ended up with Y.
But, if you like 1920s Chicago, David Mamet style conversations, and a wide cast of Chicago's demi-monde, then you will enjoy (though probably not overly so) this book.… (more)