{"product_id":"by-women-possessed-isbn-9780399159114","title":"By Women Possessed","description":"\u003cb\u003eCelebrated for their books on Eugene O’Neill and enjoying access to a trove of previously sealed archival material, the Gelbs deliver their final volume on the stormy life and brilliant oeuvre of this Nobel Prize–winning American playwright.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This is a tour through both a magical moment in American theater and the troubled life of a genius. Not a peep show or a celebrity gossip fest, this book is a brilliant investigation of the emotional knots that ensnared one of our most important playwrights. Handsome, charming when he wanted to be: O’Neill was the flame women were drawn to—all, that is, except his mother, who never let him forget he was unwanted. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBy Women Possessed\u003c\/i\u003e follows O’Neill through his great successes, the failures he was able to shrug off, and the long eclipse, a twelve-year period in which, despite the Nobel, nothing he wrote was produced. But ahead lay his greatest achievements: \u003ci\u003eThe Iceman Cometh\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e Long Day’s Journey into Night\u003c\/i\u003e. Both were ahead of their time and both received lukewarm receptions. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt wasn’t until after his death that his widow, the keeper of the flame, began a fierce and successful campaign to restore his reputation. The result is that today, just over 125 years after his birth, O’Neill is a towering presence in the theater, his work—always in performance here and abroad—still electrifying audiences. Perhaps of equal importance, he is the acknowledged father of modern American theater, the man who paved the way for the likes of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and a host of others. But, as Williams has said, at a cost: “O’Neill gave birth to the American theater and died for it.”\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eBy Women Possessed\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A juicy and entertaining volume that brims with such offstage theatrics.”— \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Now, in \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eBy Women Possessed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, we have by far their most comprehensive portrait of a man who was the ultimate example of a god with feet of clay… the result of the accumulated work and reflections of over 60 years, the Gelbs have produced a monumental tome…It stands as both a monument to O’Neill and as a testament to their labors…the industrious Gelbs demonstrate as profound a love for their subject as could be wished, and they regard detail unearthed as potential gold dust.” \u003ci\u003e— \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It is as difficult to put down this exhaustively reported reexamination of America’s first major playwright as it is to ignore fresh productions of his great plays.” — \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This extraordinary book is the final chapter in a fifty-year effort to help us to know and understand our greatest dramatist. Barbara Gelb and her late husband, Arthur, have given us the most important resource in illuminating the life and work of Eugene O'Neill.”—Brian Dennehy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This is a compelling examination of one of the 20th century’s most passionate and troubled minds, and a prime example of expert, diligent, and wryly editorial biographical research.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A compellingly full-size portrait of a literary titan.”—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Gelbs are renowned for their Eugene O'Neill biographies, and the new one…is packed with riveting details and rich portraits of O'Neill and the people in his life, particularly third wife Carlotta. It's also just a great read. The relationship of Eugene and Carlotta is shown as loving at times, shot through with angst and anger at others; oh, the drama!...\u003ci\u003eBy Women Possessed\u003c\/i\u003e is a fine last legacy, a tribute to his and his wife's work and their fascination with and exploration of O'Neill.”— \u003ci\u003eNew London Day\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A fitting capstone to a lifetime’s study of the strange and tormented man who revolutionized the American Theater.” — \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eIrish Echo\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Their illuminating third volume, bolstered by his third wife Carlotta Monterey's previously unreleased diaries, reevaluates the influence of his mother and his three wives. When his morphine-addicted mother Ella told him she wished he'd never been born, she betrayed O'Neill in a way he would never forgive. His love-hate for her shaped his work and his marriages to Kathleen Jenkins, fiction writer Agnes Boulton and Carlotta. The Gelbs describe how, after his death at 65 in 1953, Carlotta mounted productions of \u003ci\u003eThe Iceman Cometh\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLong Day's Journey into Night\u003c\/i\u003e, solidifying his legendary status\" — BBC\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“\u003c\/i\u003eArthur and Barbara Gelb cornered the market on Eugene O’Neill with their celebrated biographies\u003ci\u003e O’Neill\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e O’Neill: Life with Monte Cristo. \u003c\/i\u003e You wouldn’t think there’d be much more to say, but several years ago, they discovered unpublished diaries by O’Neill’s third wife, Carlotta Monterey. The result is the fascinating\u003ci\u003e By Women Possessed\u003c\/i\u003e…Not for the faint of heart…But neither, for the most part, are O’Neill’s plays\u003cb\u003e.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e — \u003c\/b\u003eNew York Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Besides drawing a precise and stirring portrait of the genre-defining writer’s tortured and inspired career, the Gelbs – Arthur passed away in 2014 while completing this project to which the couple dedicated both of their nearly 70-year careers – also present a fascinating account of the world of American theater in the first half of the 20th century.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e— \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eHarper's Bazaar\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e O'Neill\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One is dragged into the very presence of a genius and made to feel his awful size. O'Neill was the great wrestler, fighting God to a standstill. The authors have brought out his failings as a writer and as a person only to leave him larger than before. I for one will never forget the image of him the authors have made. O'Neill needed this book, we all did. The theater will always need it, for most of the time it is in the hands of triflers who will forever need the towering rebuke of his life and his work and his agony.”—Arthur Miller\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“This is a wonderful book. It has the flow of fine fiction and the impact of reality. Its protagonist was a giant. He founded the American theater and his own story is as dramatic and as tragic as any of his plays. But this book is more than his life story. It reveals the making of an artist, the sources of his materials and insight into the mystery of his genius. The authors live in the theater; they know it and they care. They have sought out scores of people who knew O'Neill, and out of a monumental job of research, they have re-created the color of six decades. This book is a work of devotion—and one of the very best books I have read about the American theater.”—Eliz Kazan\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for\u003ci\u003e O'Neill: Life With Monte Cristo \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[This book] is more than a biography; it's a truly magnificent, insightful and meticulously documented original work worthy of O'Neill's genius. Having thought I knew almost everything about O'Neill, I am truly wide-eyed at the discoveries that Arthur and Barbara Gelb have made.”—Jason Robards\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“This is a great symphony of a book where Arthur and Barbara Gelb guide us to the lower depths of Eugene O'Neill's family. Here are many of the ingredients of a modern tragedy—alcoholism, drug addiction, ethnic angst, spiritual despair and even success of a certain kind, all narrated and scrutinized with insight, eloquence and , above all, compassion. It doesn't matter that you know the fate of the O'Neill family: you still can't put the book down. There is only one place this book can be shelved—right next to the immortal plays of Eugene O'Neill. Like Richard Ellmann and James Joyce, the Gelbs and O'Neill are linked forever.”—Frank McCourt\u003cb\u003eArthur Gelb \u003c\/b\u003eand\u003cb\u003e Barbara Gelb\u003c\/b\u003e are the authors of \u003ci\u003eO’Neill\u003c\/i\u003e (1962) and \u003ci\u003eO’Neill: Life with Monte Cristo\u003c\/i\u003e (2000), each covering materials known at the time. \u003ci\u003eBy Women Possessed \u003c\/i\u003ebenefits from newly released archival material (diaries, letters) and a revisiting of material that was interdicted as long as the widow lived. It also benefits from the wisdom of age: The authors began their first O’Neill book when he was thirty-two and she thirty. Life lived has a way of adding shading that youth cannot imagine. They were just completing this final book when Arthur, then ninety, died. Among her books, Barbara is also the author of \u003ci\u003eSo Short a Time\u003c\/i\u003e, a biography of John Reed (\u003ci\u003eTen Days That Shook the World\u003c\/i\u003e) and Louise Bryant—O’Neill's great flame, perhaps because she was the one who left him; and the one-woman play\u003ci\u003e My Gene\u003c\/i\u003e, based on Carlotta Monterey’s life and starring Colleen Dewhurst. Arthur Gelb served in many positions at \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e before assuming the post of managing editor. He is the author of several books, most recently, the acclaimed memoir \u003ci\u003eCity Room\u003c\/i\u003e.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Although it is only five o'clock on the winter-dark afternoon of      January 30, 1928-three and a half hours earlier than the customary      eight-thirty Broadway premiere-first-nighters are spilling from      limousines and taxis in front of the new John Golden Theater. As      they step onto the roped-off sidewalk, they are surrounded by a      crush of celebrity-oglers who are being pressed back by a cadre of      mounted police. The celebrities themselves blithely jostle their      way to their seats, undaunted by the prospect of sitting through a      performance that is double the length of a conventional play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They are here for the season's most trumpeted theatrical event,      Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The author, globally heralded as the pioneer of American stage      tragedy and the recipient (so far) of two Pulitzer Prizes, will      not be present. Chronically nervous and wary of crowds, he usually      sends his wife, Agnes Boulton, as his emissary on opening nights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Boulton, however, has her own good reasons for staying in      Spithead, the Bermuda home where O'Neill, craving isolation, has      settled near the sea that has called to him since childhood.      Tonight O'Neill has designated as his emissary Carlotta Monterey,      a former actress who is better known for her sultry beauty than      for her talent. During the past year and a half, O'Neill has been      twisting in the tempest of his on-and-off love affair with her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At thirty-nine, O'Neill is as handsome as Apollo, as haunted as      Oedipus, and as conflicted as Hamlet. Although long a religious      apostate, he was born and raised a Catholic, and his adultery      torments him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It's this and that, the this-that desire-more than desire,      need!-that slow-poisons the soul with complicated contradictions,\"      he lamented in a letter to his closest confidant, Kenneth      Macgowan, the theater critic and author. \"And do not mistake my      nebulous cries for whinings. Beauty, either here or there, is      worth whatever price one has to pay for it, here or there . . . Oh      very much so!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Carlotta Monterey, who has recently ended an unhappy marriage, is      O'Neill's age but, like Shakespeare's queen, age cannot wither      her; a jazz-era Cleopatra, she glides down the aisle to her seat,      warmly greeted by friends and stared at by strangers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She is escorted by James Speyer, a sixty-seven-year-old widower      and powerful international banker and philanthropist. Carlotta's      senior by twenty-seven years, Speyer is an elegant, sophisticated,      undemanding man with whom she has had an intermittent love affair      both before her marriage and following her divorce. Monterey, who      affectionately calls Speyer \"Papa,\" has led O'Neill to believe he      is merely a fatherly friend. Speyer is so fond of her that he has      long since secretly settled a sizeable annual income on her-with      no strings attached. To O'Neill she attributes the money to a      bequest from a childless aunt who raised her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Monterey's bearing is haughty, but her nose-in-the-air carriage      stems from severe near-sightedness. Pointed and slightly overlong,      her nose, together with a chiseled chin and a complexion both      pearly and flawless, completes the veneer of aloof entitlement.      Tonight she wears her hair-thick, lustrous, and black-drawn into a      smooth coil at the nape of her long, slender neck; she is      sometimes referred to in print as \"The Swan.\" But it is her dark,      deep-set eyes, feathered with long lashes, that are her most      striking feature; \"Shadow Eyes,\" O'Neill calls her, quoting      Baudelaire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Her close friend, the actress Ilka Chase, describes her as \"kind      and funny\"-even, on occasion, \"ribald\"-although Monterey herself      insists she is \"innately shy.\" Chase admires her immaculate      grooming and cites her predilection for couture suits and dresses.      Her accessories, Chase notes, are \"of the finest material, her      shoes made to order of special leathers at great cost\" and      sometimes sewn with jewels.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Monterey's recent divorce from her third husband, Ralph Barton,      has been much gossiped about. He is a prestigious artist and a bon      vivant-jaunty, openhanded-with unlimited entrée; his caricatures      appear prominently in The New Yorker and his renderings of      Carlotta and his fellow Brahmins are also vied for by the editors      of Vanity Fair, Life, Judge, and Harper's Bazaar, all of whom pay      him exorbitant fees. He has been acclaimed for his witty      illustrations for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Anita Loos's best      seller parodying the social and sexual excess of what is now the      tail end of the Roaring Twenties. Barton adored Carlotta and she      adored him. But she could not forgive his compulsive philandering.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Opening-nighters who have been following the chitchat about      Strange Interlude in the newspapers anticipate an uninhibited      probing of Modern Woman’s psychic and sexual yearnings.      Contemporary American novelists have explored this territory, but      American playwrights have tended to sidestep any intense delving      into the messy subject of sex. Not O’Neill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Strange Interlude is O'Neill's nineteenth attempt in twelve years      to soar beyond the limits of traditional theatrical creativity. He      has confided to Carlotta, who has read the script, that the play      is embedded in his own life: \"Of course, there's almost everything      in it that makes people mad with rapture or tortured beyond belief      . . . This whole play is I, my experience, you might say.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Carlotta has asked O'Neill if she has correctly recognized aspects      of herself in Nina Leeds, the play's protagonist, and he has      allowed that \"there is a lot of you in the woman, I think . . .      and yet, wholly unlike you.\" He hesitates to admit just how deeply      he has blended her into the multifaceted Nina Leeds, but in truth      his agonizing fixation on Carlotta was seldom out of his mind      during the long months he labored over the play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As for O'Neill's own essence in Interlude, it is expressed in the      character of the virile psychologist, Dr. Darrell, whose first      name, significantly, is Edmund (the name O'Neill will later use to      represent himself in his openly autobiographical Long Day's      Journey Into Night). Darrell, like O'Neill, is \"handsome and      intelligent,\" his \"dark eyes are analytical,\" and there is \"a      quality about him, provoking and disturbing to women, of intense      passion.\" Illicitly in love with Nina, Darrell struggles against      this passion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Sometimes I almost hate her!\" Darrell says in an aside, adding      that if not for her, he'd have kept his \"peace of mind\"; he      berates himself for being \"no good for anything lately.\" And then      O'Neill, surely thinking of his own early effort to evade      Carlotta's conquest, causes Darrell to muse: \"Got me where she      wants me! . . . I'm caught . . . she touches my hand, her eyes get      in mine, I lose my will.\" He vows to go away and \"forget her in      work!\" But in the end, Darrell succumbs to Nina (foreshadowing      O'Neill's own surrender to Carlotta).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nina Leeds is O'Neill's Everywoman. She is the emotional and      psychological aggregate of all the tragic heroines of his previous      plays. She embodies for O'Neill both the darkest and most      seductive characteristics of her sex-qualities that O'Neill      attributes not only to the cluster of women with whom he's had      unhappy love affairs, but also to the unstable, withholding mother      who had wished him unborn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The opening-night audience sits entranced by the play’s convoluted      and ever- more- lurid plot. It seems that Nina, the pampered,      middle-class daughter of a widowed college professor, had      sanctimoniously refused to sleep with her lover, Gordon Shaw,      before he went off to war. Now, he has been killed in action, and      Nina, crazed by guilt, hurls herself into a nursing career and      sleeps with every wounded soldier who desires her. To save Nina      from her self-destructive behavior, Dr. Darrell advises her to      marry the dead Gordon’s best friend, Sam Evans, who worships her.      Although she does not love Sam, she agrees, believing she will      thereby atone for having allowed Gordon to die unfulfilled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Dutifully pregnant with Sam's child, Nina abruptly learns that      (unknown to Sam) there is insanity in his family, and secretly      undergoes an illegal abortion; unwilling to hurt Sam, she pretends      she has had a miscarriage. Sam sinks into a deep depression, and      Nina-intent on providing him with his longed-for child-persuades      Darrell to impregnate her. A son is born, Nina presents him to her      unsuspecting husband as his own, and Sam comes joyously back to      life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nina, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Darrell (who is equally      smitten), and won't give him up. But Darrell finds it harder and      harder to live with the guilt of betraying Sam and struggles to      end his affair (as O'Neill is struggling to give up Carlotta).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Time goes by. Lots of time. This, after all, is a five-hour,      nine-act drama that unfolds over twenty-five years and has all the      elements of a novel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nina's affair with Darrell eventually cools; she loses the son she      adores to a daughter-in-law she loathes; Sam's prosperous, happy      life is cut short by a heart attack; and Nina allows herself to      sink into a comfortable, asexual relationship with an old family      friend, an elderly, timid mama's boy, who has always secretly      loved her. At play's end, the widowed Nina longs for nothing more      than to \"rot away in peace.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For its day, Strange Interlude was an audacious and triumphant      challenge to the Broadway showplace. O’Neill’s daringly raw scenes      of sexual lust-not to mention his reference to the taboo topic of      abortion-were years ahead of their time not only for the American      stage, but also for much of contemporary American fiction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Even the best of modern novels [are] padded with the unimportant      and insignificant,\" and their authors are \"mere timid recorders of      life,\" O'Neill has complained to the critic Joseph Wood Krutch.      Carlotta, herself at home in the theater, knows O'Neill scorns      most of his fellow dramatists (in some of whose plays Carlotta has      appeared) as scramblers after easy success; they wedge their      characters into artificial situations and then melodramatically      extricate them-all in the cause of sending their audiences home in      a glow of happy endings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e O'Neill himself has never stooped to crowd-pleasing; none of his      previous successes had happy endings-not The Hairy Ape, The      Emperor Jones, or Desire Under the Elms; nor the two for which he      won the Pulitzer Prize, Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie      (although some of his critics, to O'Neill's dismay, misread the      latter play's conclusion).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In all his writing, O'Neill was obsessed with man's battle against      fate, a battle he inevitably loses. It is the bedrock of his      creativity and he has never flinched from expressing it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Most modern plays are concerned with the relation between man and      man. But that does not interest me at all,\" he has declared. \"I am      interested only in the relation between man and God.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In Strange Interlude, O'Neill has chosen to focus on the      relationship between woman and God; Nina Leeds is every bit as      God-forsaken and afflicted as any of O'Neill's earlier suffering      male protagonists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The knowledgeable opening-night audience is quick to realize that      Strange Interlude is O’Neill’s most ambitious effort to date,      offering a feast of insights into the psyches of his      characters-particularly when they voice their sometimes startling      inner thoughts in spoken asides. He makes no apology for borrowing      this archaic device; he is just as ready to pinch Elizabethan      technique, when he thinks it will work, as he is to appropriate      stagecraft from the ancient Greeks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He is, however, quick to deny that he has been influenced by      Freudian gospel, as some of his critics will assert (this being,      after all, the dawn of psychoanalytical enlightenment). He has      more than once insisted that every creative artist since the      beginning of time is an instinctive psychologist and doesn't      require Freud's assistance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As the curtain rises (shortly after five fifteen) on part one of      Strange Interlude, Carlotta is in a flutter. She and O’Neill have      made plans to secretly slip away to Europe in ten days, and if the      play is a hit-as she suspects it will be-his freshly garnered      notoriety will make it all but impossible for them to maintain      their privacy. As she strains to sense the audience’s reaction,      she doesn’t know if she’s more terrified or thrilled by what      awaits her. Forewarned that the five-hour performance will break      for a dinner intermission at a quarter to eight, many playgoers      plan to return home to change into the black-tie attire that is de      rigueur for a premiere (but gauche at five in the afternoon),      before reclaiming their seats for the play’s second half, at nine      o’clock. Others, more interested in nourishment than fashion, are      already in formal attire, and scurry to nearby restaurants.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Golden Theater, somewhat isolated (on Fifty-eighth Street near      Central Park) has fewer dining choices than the pulsing midtown      theater district, but the nearby Park Central has tailored a      \"Dinner Interlude\" between seven forty-five and nine for the      Strange Interlude audience, and the Au Grande Vatel promises (in      the Playbill), \"You Will Be Repaid by Walking Three Blocks South      on 7th Avenue for Your Intermission Dinner,\" which (including      dessert and coffee) is available \"from 75 cents to $1.75.\" It will      be a shivery walk, though, with the temperature in the low      twenties.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Carlotta is among those who forego dinner. She is driven to her      Upper East Side apartment where, before changing into an evening      gown, she telephones a jittery O'Neill at the Wentworth Hotel on      Forty-sixth Street near Broadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The audience is savoring the play, she reports, and she pictures      her lover's rare smile of pleasure, the light in his piercing dark      brown eyes. His image is seldom out of her mind-his silky brown      hair and mustache, the lean muscular body of the habitual swimmer.      She thinks of the moments shared with him at the back of the dark,      near-empty theater during rehearsals, watching his play evolve,      her hand enclosed in his long-fingered grip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In looks, he is her perfect male counterpart; they relish posing      together for portrait photographers, all of whom are sworn to      withhold the photos until after their marriage. While she speaks      to O'Neill on the phone, she imagines him pacing his two-room      suite, tense about his newest work, wishing it were over, missing      her, fighting his anxiety and guilt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e O'Neill also gets a favorable report from Lawrence Langner, his      producer and the principal founder of the Theater Guild. During      intermission, Langner ducks into a nearby drugstore phone booth to      give O'Neill \"a blow-by-blow account\" of how the play is being      received.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Unknown to Carlotta, O'Neill-in a characteristic gesture of      nostalgia for his vagabond youth-has chosen to wait out the      evening in his suite with Bill Clarke, a former circus daredevil      known as \"Volo the Volitant,\" who once turned loops in the air      while riding his bicycle down a precipitous incline at Madison      Square Garden. (O'Neill will later partly base the character of Ed      Mosher, \"one-time circus man\" in The Iceman Cometh, on him.)      O'Neill has invited Clarke to join him for dinner.","brand":"Marian Wood Books\/Putnam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302526898405,"sku":"NP9780399159114","price":50.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780399159114.jpg?v=1767723245","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/by-women-possessed-isbn-9780399159114","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}