A born thinker, artist, and "reflector" on life and presenting it through his writing. Crisp and usually to the point his insights and reflections are sleeved in the climes of the SW and California. Love these short books of Shepherd. This book was a great way to end it. Observing himself and loving his family as he wasted away and died.
If I could be so creative and bold. ( )

I loved Sam Shepard. In his final years, he shifted to short fiction more so than plays, with results that were mixed, but always intriguing. "Great Dream of Heaven" and "Day Out of Days" both had some magnificent stories and short prose/mood pieces in them. I didn't connect with his recent "The One Inside" and stopped midway through.

For "Spy in the First Person", I felt I owed it to Sam - one of my muses and mentors as a writer - to see this meandering, painful tale through. His gift of description was as intact as ever, not slowed or worn by his battle with ALS. The short (a page or two each) chapters weave between "The First Person" (Sam), "The Spy" or stranger (also Sam, or perhaps Death), and myriad other stream of consciousness observations, memories, and tales. I found I was gripped by the personal - how Sam was dealing with this deteriorating body, with his sharp mind still intact - but he drifted from that narrative often, either by choice or subconsciously because of the pain of it all. When he let us in, it was harrowingly tragic and beautiful and honest. Otherwise, I struggled to appreciate where he was taking the reader with the subsequent story elements.

Sam's fiction has always had a patchwork quality to it, reflections from pieces of broken glass on some dusty backroad somewhere in America. He's not one to say, "here's my story", and I admire that. I'm just not sure I can recommend this book for anyone except die hard fans of Sam's work, or those who want the smallest of glimpses into how it feels to watch ALS ravage your body and spirit.

It is only fair to share that Sam went from writing this longhand (no longer able to type) to speaking passages and having his children or sisters transcribe his thoughts. Then, friend Patti Smith came to help him edit it in his final days. The care for the craft is there. The keen observation of nature and people is there. The plainspoken awareness of death is there. I'm glad he wrote it and glad I read it. I'll miss him dearly. I just wouldn't say this is the place to start with Shepard, or to go to unless you are very familiar with his storytelling approach of late and ready for a wandering narrative that may not feel like it offers any resolve. ( )

This was another sad reading experience, as this was the last Shepard published, and it was published posthumously by his children. Shepard is a favorite author with his stripped-down style and keen ear for Western thought and dialog. As per usual, there is an otherworldly elemental to the narrative, as a man spies on his elderly neighbor from across the street, wondering about the man's life while the man himself is lost in thought about that life - it's unclear who either of them are, whether they are the same person, whether they are two elements of Shepard himself. Though Shepard seems to answer that question in the affirmative in the last short chapter. There are few living authors writing about the West like Shepard, and only a few deceased who could match him. The world lost a unique and vibrant mind.

5 bones!!!!! ( )

A vivid and final collection of short prose from Sam Shepard. Most of the stories were written by hand or voice recorded because of Shepard's ALS. Patti Smith, friend, musician and author, helped edit the final work.

( )

A strange, rambling work in the first person, but it seems to be several persons, only it is hard to be sure because the speaker is never identified. It contains no story, no plot, no character development, and appears to be the disjointed thoughts of someone who is in the last stages of his life. If that sounds horrible, well, it wasn't. But it wasn't great, either. I suspect this is the sort of book many people will think they have to see as genius because they don't understand it. I didn't understand it either, but I think because there really isn't anything there to understand. A quick read. ( )