Horton Foote: America’s Storyteller

From his film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, which received an Oscar, his drama The Trip to Bountiful, and his screenplay of Tender Mercies to his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Young Man from Atlanta, and his complete nine-play opus, The Orphans' Home Cycle, Foote's work has touched millions. He has long been regarded by other playwrights and screenwriters, actors, and cognoscenti of the theater and cinema as America's storyteller; critics compare him to William Faulkner and Anton Chekhov. Yet Horton Foote's compelling character and rich life remain largely unknown to the general public. His is the story of an artist who refused to compromise his talents for the sake of fame or money or opportunity - who insisted on writing what he regarded as truth, even when for many years almost no one would listen. In the first comprehensive biography of this remarkable writer, Wilborn Hampton introduces Foote to the countless Americans who have admired his work. Hampton, a theater critic for the New York Times, offers a colorful, compulsively readable account of a life and career that spanned seven decades.