August Wilson: A Life

Journalist and theater critic Hartigan assembles an astonishing array of sources in this comprehensive biography of renowned playwright August Wilson. Hartigan incorporates her many interviews with Wilson into this production, along with dozens of interviews with Wilson’s friends and family and copious historical research. Acclaimed narrator Dion Graham becomes the steady hand at the tiller of this massive ship, guiding listeners through the history spanning decades of a creative mind at work. Wilson’s personal and family history is bound into his plays, with characters being drawn from the people he knew and the ancestors who came before him. Graham’s smooth and polished narration, interlaced with a more informal tone for quoted or paraphrased dialogue, allows listeners to follow the mindset of a complex and idiosyncratic artist back and forth in time. The result rewards listeners with a taste for detail but may be overwhelming for others. Hartigan narrates both the afterword and her brief author’s note, adding a personal touch.