100 Books Like The Cripple of Inishmaan

This is the play that made Suzan-Lori Parks the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

It features only two characters and takes place in only one room, but it is a dynamite exploration of the competitive relationship between two adult African-American brothers who have been abandoned by everyone else in their lives. One brother is a petty thief who wants to become a three-card-monte dealer. The other is an Abraham Lincoln impersonator who works as a target in a mock shooting gallery.

For me, the excitement of this play is all about discovering who these two men are, how they got that way, and how far each is willing to go to become a topdog in a world that has made them underdogs for years.

You don’t have to grow up Catholic to like this play, but It sure doesn’t hurt.

Set in a Catholic elementary school in the Bronx, Doubt introduces us to Sister Aloysius, an uncompromising principal who runs her school as if it were a Marine bootcamp. This regime gets shaken when suspicions of sexual child abuse begin to arise.

What I like most about this play is how four flesh-and-blood characters – a school principal, a history teacher, a priest/gym instructor, and a student’s mother – can bring an entire school and community onstage in an incredibly vital way.

It’s why I think the play is superior to the later film adaptation and also why the play received so many awards, including a Tony for Best Play and a Pulitzer for Drama. 

While most plays are driven by one protagonist, this Pulitzer finalist is a great example of how a group of characters can work together dramatically to fill that role.

Once again, it is the characters themselves who make this script so memorable: Lane, a successful doctor who met her husband in medical school over a dead body; Matilide, Lane’s Brazilian housekeeper who would rather be a stand-up comedian; and Virginia, Lane’s obsessive-compulsive sister who secretly cleans Lane’s house.

Breaking with realism, each of these characters addresses us directly at key times in the story and bring us into a “metaphysical Connecticut” where it may snow in a living room or where a perfect joke can cause someone to die laughing – literally.

I saw the world premiere of this play at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and never forgot it.

What stays with me most is the powerful main character Mama Nadi, a fierce, shrewd businesswoman who runs a brothel in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a civil war. And though she lives in a world where sex trafficking, rape, mutilation, and other brutality is commonplace, she knows how to keep her establishment flourishing and her girls, safe.

Playwright Nottage based her characters on women and girls whom she interviewed during a trip to Africa. The authenticity of the characters and storyline may help explain why the play went on to earn multiple awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 

One of my favorite novels of any length, Nathanael West’s short 1939 classic is at the very least the most disturbing portrait of Golden Age Hollywood and its hangers-on ever written—hideous, poignant, horribly funny.

West himself wrote scripts for B-movies in the thirties. His death at thirty-three in a car crash was perhaps, in its awful and infuriating ridiculousness, fitting. And it was the day after F. Scott Fitzgerald died.

This book is not directly linked with my research, but it shows how financial interests can influence artistic works. It especially shows the critical role of the producer in the messages brought by a film.

The Collaboration reveals a hidden chapter of Hollywood's past. Ben Urwand shows the complex relationship between Hollywood and Nazi Germany during a time when cinema was at its zenith. The book discovers a very disturbing reality. Major Hollywood studios, despite many of them being led by Jewish executives, made secret agreements with Nazi authorities to avoid depicting Germany unfavorably or addressing the persecution of Jews.

Urwand's diligent research, backed by letters, memos, and historical accounts, paints a picture of compromise on the part of Hollywood producers during that period of history, which preferred their financial interests over their moral duties.

Bukowski didn't thieve, solve crimes, or use high-tech. In fact, he worked hard and was poor and isolated most of his life. But he lived in the fringe of the noir world, and beat on his machines—manual typewriters, then an IBM Selectric, and finally, with some fame and money, a computer. He was South of his No North, real and genuine for so long that when Hollywood knocked, he was ready for them. This book is his first-hand account of the dumb ego and stupid money that goes into making a movie. Hilarious and dark at the same time. A poet's novel.

We believe you can learn more from failure than success. Misfires don’t come much bigger than the 1990 adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s blockbuster novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. The movie busted nary a block, which only makes director Brian De Palma’s willingness to open up the process to reporter/critic Salamon more remarkable.

This visits every department—including our favorite, costume design—and underscores that no one knows if a movie will be a smash or a flop while they’re making it, so cast and crew work just as hard on both. We love the story of second-unit director Eric Schwab seizing the opportunity to prove himself.

Despite wars, plagues, and technological revolutions, the psychology of Hollywood endures and Schulberg’s novel about screenwriters in pre-World War Two Hollywood remains an obligatory read for anyone contemplating a life in showbusiness or wanting, as a member of the audience, to have a deeper understanding of the business. The book still so accurately describes the challenges of a writer’s life and work, that when I served on the Writers Guild of America West’s board, I’d sometimes read passages from the book to the rest of the board members during our discussions of potential strike issues or matters affecting Guild unity. Schulberg’s eloquent yet plain-spoken insights were simply still that valuable, convincing – and entertaining.

In an age of constant digital deception, it was utterly fascinating to read the story of someone who manipulates people through the simple use of a phone call.

The plot follows two filmmakers, Carrie and Meadow, the latter of whom makes a documentary about “Nicole”, a woman who seduced an array of Hollywood heavy hitters armed with nothing more than a telephone. The novel unfolds through multiple perspectives and timeframes that begin as disparate but are slowly woven together by Spiotta’s expert hand.

The plot itself is fascinating, but Spiotta’s stylistic and thematic mastery are a wonder to behold. Sidenote: Nicole is loosely based on the true story of Whitney Walton, on whom Jen Silverman also did a brilliant take in her audiobook The Miranda Obsession (performed by Rachel Brosnahan).