Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson. New York. 1988. Plume/New American Library. 0452260094. 94 pages. paperback.  

DESCRIPTION -  ‘August Wilson continues to rewrite the history of the American theater. JOE TURNER is his most adventurous piece of writing.' - Frank Rich, The New York Times. From the author of the 1984-85 Broadway season's best play MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning FENCES comes another brilliant depiction of the black American experience - JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE. When Herald Loomis arrives at a black Pittsburgh boardinghouse after seven years' impressed labor on Joe Turners chain gang, he is a free man - in body. But the scars of his enslavement and a sense of inescapable alienation oppress his spirit still, and the seemingly hospitable rooming house seethes with tension and distrust in the presence of this tormented stranger. Loomis is looking for the wife he left behind, believing that she can help him reclaim his old identity. But through his encounters with the other residents he begins to realize that what he really seeks is his rightful place in a new world - and it will take more than the skills of the local ‘People Finder' to discover it. ‘Has the haunting power of a ghost story. . . Bold theatricality. . . Electrifying' - The Washington Post. ‘August Wilson's best play!' - William A. Henry III, TIME magazine.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - August Wilson (Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of 10 plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle (or The Century Cycle), which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include Fences (1987) and The Piano Lesson (1990), each of which won Wilson the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984) and Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988). In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. August Wilson was born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a two-room apartment behind a grocery store on Bedford Avenue in the city's Hill district. He learned to read at age four. At fifteen he quit high school and began his self-education at the Carnegie Library. At twenty he dedicated himself to writing poetry and supported himself with a series of jobs: dishwasher, short-order cook, porter, toy store stock boy, gardener, and mailroom clerk. At thirty-three he left Pittsburgh for St. Paul, Minnesota, where he turned to play writing. In addition to MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, FENCES, and JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE, August Wilson is the author of THE PIANO LESSON, which won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for drama, and TWO TRAINS RUNNING.

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