A most unhappy fella …

… On the Tennessee (Williams) Trail | The Hudson Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Williams’ autobiographical impulses came at a timely moment in American history. World War II was over, and Americans could start looking inward again. The country’s cultural narcissism began in that period of postwar prosperity. For his part, Williams had been mining his family drama since college in poetry and fiction and, finally, drama. As Gore Vidal observed, his family provided “his basic repertory com­pany.” Just as Laura played with her glass animals, Williams played with his characters, crystallizing their faults, but also burnishing their tragedies into epic poetry.