Prolific playwright, screenwriter, and actor Charles Busch offers a joyful memoir to capture the hearts of theater and movie buffs, and theater critic Patti Hartigan delights with an outstanding biography of the great playwright August Wilson. 

★Busch, Charles. Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy. Smart Pop. Sept. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781637744147. $27.95. MEMOIR

Busch, a prolific and award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and actor, has written an absolutely captivating memoir. A born raconteur, Busch spins enthralling tales into short, buoyant chapters. Occasionally the chronological storytelling is interrupted with flash-forward chapters, which sweep readers off to dine with Claudette Colbert, interview Liza Minnelli, ghostwrite for Joan Rivers, or run into Kim Novak at an event. After the death of his mother, the author was taken under the wing of his Aunt Lil who moved him into her Manhattan apartment and enrolled him in an arts high school. Later, Busch found his artistic voice by writing his own plays and casting himself as the lead woman. His play Vampire Lesbians of Sodom ran for five years and brought him acclaim; two other plays—Psycho Beach Party and Die, Mommie, Die!—were later adapted for the screen with Busch as their leading lady. He writes with great fondness about his Tony-nominated hit, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, and with honesty about his “miserable” experience working on the Broadway flop Taboo, produced by Rosie O’Donnell and starring Boy George. VERDICT This joyful, upbeat, and witty memoir will likely capture the hearts of theater and movie buffs.—Kevin Howell

★Hartigan, Patti. August Wilson: A Life. S. & S. Aug. 2023. 592p. ISBN 9781501180668. $32.50. BIOG

There probably won’t be a better-written biography of the great playwright August Wilson (1945–2005) than theater critic Hartigan’s remarkable book. Wilson wrote a 10-play series—one for each decade of the 20th century—that captures Black lives and their frustrations and hopes. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Jitney, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, and The Piano Lesson are just a few of his works that are a permanent part of the American theater repertoire. Wilson won two Pulitzers, two Tony Awards (one posthumously for Best Revival of a Play), and many honorary degrees, including a belated high school diploma; he dropped out at 15 after being accused of plagiarism. Hartigan, an astute judge of the plays, is also insightful and moving as she details how Wilson, whose absent father was white and whose mother was Black, grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood in a mostly white Pittsburgh suburb. Wilson often said that he didn’t do research; he wrote from “the blood’s memory.” He wasn’t a seer, writes Hartigan, but a truth teller, and, more than anyone else, the one who made theatergoers see Black lives as a vibrant part of the soul of the nation. VERDICT This brilliant biography is a vital purchase.—David Keymer