Tennessee Williams - Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays

Often, a writer's shorter pieces can provide a kind of key, or perhaps more aptly a map, which aids in navigating their longer (if not always more substantial) work - themes and ideas which may not emerge as clearly or as simply in full-length novels, with all their associated foliage, may be laid bare in shorter stories and novellas, for example. There's something of that sense to the short plays in this volume, mostly from early in Williams' writing career; they certainly have the characteristic flavour that I've come to associate with his plays, and nearly all of them stage some kind of confrontation or collision between youth and age, innocence and experience...has definitely added something to my relationship with his work.