A Ned Rorem Reader

"Approaching his 80th year, Rorem -- Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, unrivalled practitioner of the American art song, shamelessly candid libertine, ambivalent grandfather figure of gay liberation, pithy epigrammatist -- has assembled an anthology of his writings that chronicles the postures and passions of a breed of 20th-century artist.

Among the collection's new material is a barbed interview with the poet J D McClatchy and excerpts from Rorem's five volumes of splendid literary diaries, irreverent and canny commentary on musical matters and loving, if occasionally scathing, remembrances of rivals and confidants from Aaron Copeland to Truman Capote.

Rorem proceeds with the studied elegance of a dandy, the bravado of a dyed-in-the-wool contrarian and the dialectical bent of a classicist.

Despite Rorem's renowned flair for high-cultural gossip, and his delight in scandalising, his true subject is nostalgia for a lost self and the transitory compensations of art and sex." -- Mark Levine, New York Times Book Review.