In his exhaustively researched and eminently readable biography, Coyote, Robert M. Dowling reveals the complex life and psyche of iconoclastic American playwright, actor, and musician Sam Shepard through his relationships, his many creative endeavors, and Shepard's own words.
Shepard and his two younger sisters grew up in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley with a doting mother and an alcoholic father who was physically and emotionally abusive. Both the place, which Shepard called "a collection of junk," and his rage-filled father would loom large in his plays, notably The Curse of the Starving Class and Buried Child, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979. Escaping to New York City in the 1960s, Shepard, a talented musician, played drums in a band called the Holy Modal Rounders, took copious amounts of drugs, and wrote furiously--one-act plays that were produced Off-Off-Broadway. Throughout Coyote, Dowling provides learned but never stuffy literary criticism of Shepard's works and film acting and blends this seamlessly with his discussion of the man's complicated, often dark life. Shepard's intense romantic relationships, for example, often overlapped. He temporarily left his young wife, O-Lan Johnson, for an affair with rocker Patti Smith, which was followed by a brief dalliance with Joni Mitchell, who nicknamed Shepard "Coyote" in her song about their fling. Shepard was still married to O-Lan when he fell in love with actress Jessica Lange, with whom he remained for almost 30 years.
Restless, troubled, and endlessly creative until his death in 2017, Shepard was a singular, fascinating figure. Coyote is a revealing and engrossing account of a brilliant life. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor