Spy of the First Person

Until his death last month, few knew that Shepard had been living with ALS, and few also knew that he had been working during that time—dictating when it became necessary—on this last book. It's a memoir seen in part from outside (hence the title)—he imagines, among other things, watching himself in his wheelchair on his porch, from across the street. It's fragmented and spare, cryptic and private but then suddenly revealing. In its hungry wonder for memory, love, and the small things of the world, it reminded me of The Memory Chalet, Tony Judt's remarkable book written under similarly dire conditions. Shepard, unsurprisingly, doesn't play it so straight, but he closes with a clear vision of family and legacy that is especially moving coming from the writer who gave us the torturous family dramas of Buried Child and True West.