Horton Foote and the theater of intimacy

the long version

"Even though Texas native Horton Foote has won two Academy Awards for screenwriting (for To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies) and a Pulitzer Prize in drama (for The Young Man from Atlanta), his work remains largely misunderstood. Foote's plays are often considered local color, his interest in history nostalgic, his preoccupation with love and courage sentimental. In short, he is widely seen as a practitioner of a superficial brand of historical realism."--BOOK JACKET. "Based in part on several interviews with Foote and also on an examination of his private papers, Horton Foote and the Theater of Intimacy argues persuasively that Foote's work is a personal form of southern psychological realism, grounded in the creative tension between his desire to report the stories of his region truthfully and his almost religious belief that love remains a source of meaning, identity, and order in twentieth-century life."--BOOK JACKET.