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speculativebecky 's review for:
The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America
by Isaac Butler, Dan Kois
The World Only Spins Forward is brilliantly structured, walking through the creation and chronologizing the production history of Angels in America, and spliced through with interludes which dive deep on each of the characters in the cast. The oral history style means that the book is made up entirely of quotes from the over 200 people who were interviewed in the course of creating this narrative. Oftentimes the writing flows as if all the quoted individuals are in a room together having a big conversation and relating their story together, although from what I understand the interviews were mostly if not entirely one on one. I can’t even imagine how much work went into parsing out from hundreds of interviews a single coherent arc made up of the thoughts of so many disparate individuals. It is really quite impressive.
Personally, I found I didn’t always maintain a great sense of who was talking. The quoted speakers are introduced with their full name and association with the play, but in subsequent quotes are introduced with only their last name. I generally immediately forgot who someone was unless they were a very important often repeated figure, which is not the fault of the writers. One thing I didn’t like was a number of times a shorter segment was inserted that ran along the bottom of many pages, I wish those had been after the chapters in which they appeared instead of requiring the reader to choose when to skip down and skip back up to read the side by side narratives. Those sections were some of my favorites however, touching on themes such as how Angels in America was part of people’s coming out processes, production history in schools, and how the play shaped the next generation of writers and directors. I was also a huge fan of the interlude sections which went in depth on each of the characters and featured discussions from most or all of the actors who played that part throughout its production history. Like Angels itself, this book is sometimes hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking, a gorgeous piece of work I'm so glad to have experienced.
Personally, I found I didn’t always maintain a great sense of who was talking. The quoted speakers are introduced with their full name and association with the play, but in subsequent quotes are introduced with only their last name. I generally immediately forgot who someone was unless they were a very important often repeated figure, which is not the fault of the writers. One thing I didn’t like was a number of times a shorter segment was inserted that ran along the bottom of many pages, I wish those had been after the chapters in which they appeared instead of requiring the reader to choose when to skip down and skip back up to read the side by side narratives. Those sections were some of my favorites however, touching on themes such as how Angels in America was part of people’s coming out processes, production history in schools, and how the play shaped the next generation of writers and directors. I was also a huge fan of the interlude sections which went in depth on each of the characters and featured discussions from most or all of the actors who played that part throughout its production history. Like Angels itself, this book is sometimes hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking, a gorgeous piece of work I'm so glad to have experienced.