Bookshelf

 Wendy and the Lost Boys 

The first female playwright
to win a Tony Award, Wendy Wasserstein was a brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning
writer who used farce and comedy in her plays and films to mask incredibly
powerful, modern women and, often, their complex, enduring relationships with gay
men. Feminists and gay men intersect in much of her work, including her most renowned
play, The Heidi Chronicles, and the Jennifer
Aniston film The Object of My Affection.
Now Julie Salamon's Wendy and the Lost Boys (Penguin Press, $30) looks at this friendly,
approachable Broadway titan — who surprised many by having a child alone at 48
— and untangles the myriad of mysteries around Wasserstein's private life.
Wendy is also the only biography written with permission of the playwright’s
family, and Salamon conducted 300 interviews with Wendy's friends and relatives. —Chris Stratton