From a Darkened Room: The Inman Diary
THE INMAN DIARIES\ a chamber opera by Thomas Oboe Lee\ based on the life and writings of Arthur Crew Inman\ and on the play Visitations by Lorenzo DeStefano\ INTERMEZZO NEW ENGLAND CHAMBER OPERA SERIES\ September 14-16, 2007\ Tower Auditorium Theatre\ Massachusetts College of Art\ 621 Huntington Avenue\ Boston, MA\ 617-899-4261 for further information\ produced with the cooperation of Harvard University Press\ Only a few of us seek immortality, and fewer still by writing. But Arthur Inman...
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THE INMAN DIARIESa chamber opera by Thomas Oboe Leebased on the life and writings of Arthur Crew Inmanand on the play Visitations by Lorenzo DeStefanoINTERMEZZO NEW ENGLAND CHAMBER OPERA SERIESSeptember 14-16, 2007Tower Auditorium TheatreMassachusetts College of Art621 Huntington AvenueBoston, MA617-899-4261 for further informationproduced with the cooperation of Harvard University PressOnly a few of us seek immortality, and fewer still by writing. But Arthur Inman challenged the odds. He calculated that if he kept a diary and spared no thoughts or actions, was entirely honest and open, and did not care about damage or harm to himself or others, he would succeed in gaining attention beyond the grave that he could not attain in life.The diary became a many-layered and strikingly animated work of a gifted writer, by turns charming, repellent, shocking, cruel, and comical. But the diary is also an uninhibited history of his times, of his eccentricities and fantasies, of his bizarre marriage arrangements and sexual adventures. Inman's explorations of his own troubled nature made him excessively curious about the secret lives of others. Like some ghostly doctor-priest, he chronicled their outpourings of head and heart as vividly as he did his own. The diary reads like a nonfiction novel as it moves inexorably toward disaster.This is an abridged version of the celebrated two-volume work published by Harvard asThe Inman Diary: A Public and Private Confession. Michael Vincent Miller - New York Times A fascinating document, by turns bizarre and illuminating, poignant and obscene...Delving into Inman's diary is like being able to eavesdrop on a conversation in a priest's confessional or psychotherapist's office...It also presents the social historian with a panorama of the twentieth century viewed from an exotic angle.
Cast of CharactersIntroducing Arthur InmanArthur RemembersArthur's Jazz Age: The Overaged AdolescentArthur after the CrashArthur's Churning World: Domestic and ForeignArthur's War and the Postbomb YearsArthur Doomed: The Chronicler AssessedIndex
\ New York TimesA fascinating document, by turns bizarre and illuminating, poignant and obscene...Delving into Inman's diary is like being able to eavesdrop on a conversation in a priest's confessional or psychotherapist's office...It also presents the social historian with a panorama of the twentieth century viewed from an exotic angle.\ — Michael Vincent Miller\ \ \ \ \ \ Washington TimesA sometimes trenchant, sometimes caustic account of Inman's times.\ \ \ \ Library JournalWealthy invalid, rabid racist, inveterate lecher, and compulsive voyeur, Inman was devoted to his diary above all else. By the time of his suicide in 1963, he had written more than 17 million words in 155 volumes. The two-volume edition issued by Harvard University Press in 1985 was generally praised for its value as social history. This abridgment, about one-third the size of the earlier edition, sacrifices political and historical material to focus on Inman's personal life: his relations with his wife, servants, and "talkers"those women who bared their souls (and often their bodies) to him for a few dollars an hour. This condensed version is no doubt meant to attract general readers. The problem, however, is that many of those readers will find Inman's bigotry and arrogance repellent.William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY\ \
