Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (I am)


I first read sections of this book as a child (7 or 8), tricked by its title. At the time I think it is meant for someone like me, pick it from the shelf at a friend's house. I don't understand most of what I read, but I do sense the emotional violence, the extreme tension. It is real. I can feel it. And it comes off the page. A remarkable discovery. 

I have since re-read the book many times, seen the movie with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and seen the play on Broadway with Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner. It remains my favorite stage play and one of my favorite books in my library. 

But nothing stays with me like that first time I pull it off the shelf as a child, get ripped open, exposed to the raw and emotional possibilities of words on the page. If any book has influenced the depths of my writing, this one has.

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