Horton Foote's Books

Farewell

A Memoir of a Texas Childhood

By: Horton Foote

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Farewell

A Memoir of a Texas Childhood

By: Horton Foote

For more than five decades, Horton Foote, "the Chekhov of the small town," has chronicled with compassion and acuity the changes in American life -- both intimate and universal. His adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and his original screenplay Tender Mercies earned him Academy Awards. He received an Indie Award for Best Writer for The Trip to Bountiful and a Pulitzer Prize for The Young Man from Atlanta. In his plays and films, Foote has returned over and over again to Wharton, Texas, where he was born and where he lives, once again, in the house in which he grew up. Now for the first time, in Farewell, Foote turns to prose to tell his own story and the stories of the real people who have inspired his characters. He was the first child of his generation of Footes, born into an extended family of aunts, great-aunts, grandparents and dozens of cousins once removed, all of whom discovered that even as a young boy Foote was an avid listener with an uncanny ability to extract a story -- including those deemed unfit for children. Foote's memories are of a time when going down to meet the train was an event whether or not you knew someone on it, when black and white children played together until segregation forced them apart at school-age. Foote beautifully maintains the child's-eye view, so that we gradually discover, as did he, that something was wrong with his Brooks uncles, that none of them proved able to keep a job or stay married or quit drinking. We see his growing understanding of all sorts of trouble -- poverty, racism, injustice, marital strife, depression and fear. His memoir is both a celebration of the immense importance of community in our earlier history and evidence that even a strong community cannot save a lost soul. In all of Foote's writing, he reveals the immense drama behind quiet lives, or as Frank Rich has said, "the unbearable turbulence beneath a tranquil surface." Farewell is as deeply moving as the best of Foote's writing for film and theater, and a gorgeous testimony to his own faith in the human spirit.

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Page Count

289

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0684863405

ISBN 13

9780684863405

Beginnings

A Memoir

By: Horton Foote

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Beginnings

A Memoir

By: Horton Foote

Since 1939, Horton Foote, "the Chekhov of the small town," has chronicled with compassion and acuity the experience of American life both intimate and universal. His adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and his original screenplay Tender Mercies earned him Academy Awards. He has won a Pulitzer Prize, the Gold Medal for Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for Drama, and the President's National Medal of Arts. Beginnings is the story of Foote's discovery of his own vocation. He didn't always want to write. When he left Wharton, Texas, at the age of sixteen to study at the Pasadena Playhouse, Foote aspired to be an actor. He remembers the terror and excitement of leaving home during the Depression, his early exposure to the influences of German theater, and the speech lessons he took to "cure" him of his Southern drawl. He eventually arrives in New York to search for acting jobs and to study with some of the great Russian and American teachers of the 1930s. But after mixed results on the stage, he finally recognizes his true passion, writing. From Martha Graham to Tennessee Williams, from Agnes de Mille to Lillian Gish, Horton collaborates with great artists in both dance and theater. The world he describes of fierce commitment and passion regardless of financial rewards is both captivating and inspiring. Through it all Horton maintains his genuine Southern charm, and he often travels home to Wharton, the town that nurtured him as a storyteller and has inspired his writing for the past sixty years. From one of the most moving and distinctive voices of our time, Beginnings is a rare, personal look at a fascinating era in American life, and at the making of a writer.

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272

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0743217616

ISBN 13

9780743217613

Convicts

By Horton Foote

By: Horton Foote

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Convicts

By Horton Foote

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: The recently orphaned Horace Robedaux is determined to buy a headstone for his father's grave. He goes to work on Soll Gautier's isolated prison farm but soon discovers that his ill and senile employer is frightfully paranoid among the c

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822225433

ISBN 13

9780822225430

Genesis of an American Playwright

By: Horton Foote

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Genesis of an American Playwright

By: Horton Foote

Besides To Kill A Mockingbird and The Trip To Bountiful, Foote has written a score of notable plays, teleplays, and films.

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310

Publisher

Baylor University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0918954916

ISBN 13

9780918954916

The Young Man from Atlanta

By: Horton Foote

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The Young Man from Atlanta

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: In her review of the play, Marian Burkhart explains the story: In THE YOUNG MAN FROM ATLANTA, a kind of elected ignorance has skewed the past and narrowed the future, for the Kidders, Lily Dale and Will. The two are attempting to cope w

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822214830

ISBN 13

9780822214830

Courtship

By: Horton Foote

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Courtship

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: As gentle and warm as the spring night in which it takes place, is a mosaic of conversations and encounters that occur during a party at the home of a well-to-do family in Harrison, Texas in 1914. The Vaughns are substantial, God-fearing

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

082221430X

ISBN 13

9780822214304

Talking Pictures

By: Horton Foote

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Talking Pictures

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: 1929, Harrison Texas. Myra Tolliver makes her living playing the live music for the silent pictures. She makes barely enough to survive, caring for herself and her teenage son, Pete. As borders in the home of the Jacksons, Myra supplemen

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822214628

ISBN 13

9780822214625

The Old Friends

By: Horton Foote

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The Old Friends

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: Matriarch Mamie Borden and the remaining members of two longtime Texas farming families await a visit from Mamie's son Hugo and his wife, Sybil. When Sybil arrives, alone, with alarming news, old friends on opposing sides must confront the issues surrounding legacy, loyalty, and the meaning of happiness that have hounded them for generations. THE OLD FRIENDS is an absorbing and vital chapter in Foote's beloved and distinctly American body of work.

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Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

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ISBN 10

0822231328

ISBN 13

9780822231325

The Habitation of Dragons

By: Horton Foote

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The Habitation of Dragons

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: It's 1935 in Harrison, Texas. George Tolliver has decided to run for county attorney general, but his older, and more successful, brother Leonard tries to dissuade him because the family's backing has already gone to another local lawyer

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Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822213303

ISBN 13

9780822213307

A Young Lady of Property

Six Short Plays

By: Horton Foote

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A Young Lady of Property

Six Short Plays

By: Horton Foote

THE STORIES: A YOUNG LADY OF PROPERTY. Wilma, a lonely girl of fifteen, lives with her aunt. Her mother is dead, and her father, who is weak and not too reliable, goes out with a Mrs. Leighton, a woman of whom the town disapproves. In a wistful mom

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164

Publisher

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822212919

ISBN 13

9780822212911

Roots in a Parched Ground

By: Horton Foote

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Roots in a Parched Ground

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: The Robedaux family has been divided by the exigencies of an unhappy fate. Julie Robedaux has moved back to her family's house with the children, Horace, Jr. and Beth Ruth, and has enlisted the help of her sister, Callie, in trying to op

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Published Date

ISBN 10

0822209675

ISBN 13

9780822209676

Three Plays

Dividing the Estate, The Trip to Bountiful, and The Young Man from Atlanta

By: Horton Foote

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Three Plays

Dividing the Estate, The Trip to Bountiful, and The Young Man from Atlanta

By: Horton Foote

Sometimes called the American Chekhov, Horton Foote has been mapping the rich emotional terrain just beneath the plain, quiet surfaces of his small-town characters for well over half a century. This anthology brings together three of his most critically acclaimed plays: Dividing the Estate, The Trip to Bountiful, and The Young Man from Atlanta.

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224

Publisher

Northwestern University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0810125366

ISBN 13

9780810125360

Cousins ; And, The Death of Papa

The Final Two Plays of The Orphans' Home Cycle

By: Horton Foote

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Cousins ; And, The Death of Papa

The Final Two Plays of The Orphans' Home Cycle

By: Horton Foote

A family is a remarkable thing, isn't it? You belong. And then you don't. It passes you by. Unless you start a family of your own." The last two plays of Horton Foote's Orphans' Home Cycle both expand and contract the circle of a family that unifies all nine of the plays. In Cousins, an operation on Horace Robedaux's mother reunites, in person and in memory, the many Robedaux relatives (one of whom speaks the lines quoted above), and in the almost comic proliferation of cousins that results, the orphaned Horace is joined across time and space to a family that seems never to end. The Death of Papa returns the cycle to its origins, with the death of Horace's father-in-law. Far from ending the story, however, Papa's death regenerates the complexity of families and their survival, as his son bravely but foolishly tries to assume control of the land that supports his family's life.

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224

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802131522

ISBN 13

9780802131522

The Traveling Lady

Play in Three Acts

By: Horton Foote

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The Traveling Lady

Play in Three Acts

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: The story is set in a small town in Texas. Georgette Thomas and her small daughter arrive, looking for Georgette's husband who, she believes, has just been released from the penitentiary. As she later learns, he has in fact been free for

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822211696

ISBN 13

9780822211693

Lily Dale

By: Horton Foote

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Lily Dale

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: After the death of his alcoholic father, and his mother's remarriage, young Horace Robedaux remained in Harrison, Texas, clerking in a dry goods store. When his mother invites him to visit her and his teenage sister, Lily, in Houston, Ho

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822206676

ISBN 13

9780822206675

The Roads to Home

By: Horton Foote

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The Roads to Home

By: Horton Foote

THE STORIES: In the first play, A NIGHTINGALE, Mabel and Vonnie, two Houston neighbors and best friends, both refugees from small Texas towns, are forbearing and patient about the protracted and uninvited visits of Annie Long, a girlhood acquaintan

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822209586

ISBN 13

9780822209584

Nineteen Eighteen

By: Horton Foote

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Nineteen Eighteen

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: Having been exempted from military service in World War I, Horace Robedeaux is back home in Harrison, Texas. He and his wife, Elizabeth, along with their infant daughter, are now settled in a new house built for them by Elizabeth's fathe

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822208288

ISBN 13

9780822208280

To Kill a Mockingbird ; Tender Mercies ; And, The Trip to Bountiful

Three Screenplays

By: Horton Foote

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To Kill a Mockingbird ; Tender Mercies ; And, The Trip to Bountiful

Three Screenplays

By: Horton Foote

Dramatizes a rape trial in a small Southern town, a washed-up country singer's recovery, and an old woman's return to her home.

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242

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802131255

ISBN 13

9780802131256

Courtship ; Valentine's Day ; 1918

Three Plays from "The Orphans' Home Cycle"

By: Horton Foote

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Courtship ; Valentine's Day ; 1918

Three Plays from "The Orphans' Home Cycle"

By: Horton Foote

Three plays of courtship and marriage trace the currents of family life back to their source in the struggle of the human spirit.

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192

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802151558

ISBN 13

9780802151551

Dividing the Estate

By: Horton Foote

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Dividing the Estate

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: Matriarch Stella Gordon is determined not to divide her 100-year-old Texas estate, despite her family's declining wealth and the looming financial crisis. But her three children have another plan. Old resentments and sibling rivalries su

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Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822223988

ISBN 13

9780822223986

Night Seasons

By: Horton Foote

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Night Seasons

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: The play takes place in Harrison, Texas, jumping back and forth between 1923 to 1963. Following the Weems family as it grows up, we watch its members find their places in society. Of the main characters: Mr. Weems is a banker with a hear

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822214822

ISBN 13

9780822214823

Getting Frankie Married-- and Afterwards

By: Horton Foote

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Getting Frankie Married-- and Afterwards

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: Frankie, a traditional girl from a traditional town, has been leading an untraditional life. For over twenty years she has been Fred's girlfriend, and though she longs to be married, Fred has never asked--until now. Why the change of hear

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822219328

ISBN 13

9780822219323

A Coffin in Egypt

By: Horton Foote

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A Coffin in Egypt

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: Myrtle Bledsoe, a ninety-year-old Texas widow, looks back on the dramatic events that caused a small Southern town, and her own relationships, incredible strife. This almost-monologue by American master Horton Foote is a haunting tale of how men and women, blacks and whites, rich and poor are all entangled in the chaos of life.

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Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822232405

ISBN 13

9780822232407

The Day Emily Married

By: Horton Foote

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The Day Emily Married

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: In Foote's mythical small town of Harrison, Texas, newlyweds Richard and Emily move in with the bride's elderly and anxious parents, Lee and Lyd Davis. Richard seems like the ideal husband for Emily, whose first marriage ended in a sad divorce. When Richard shows himself to be greedy and untrustworthy, tensions in the already-strained family threaten to cleave parents from child.

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Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822231344

ISBN 13

9780822231349

Genesis of an American Playwright

By: Horton Foote

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Genesis of an American Playwright

By: Horton Foote

Besides To Kill A Mockingbird and The Trip To Bountiful, Foote has written a score of notable plays, teleplays, and films.

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Page Count

310

Publisher

Baylor University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0918954916

ISBN 13

9780918954916

The Orphans' Home Cycle

The story of a childhood. Part one

By: Horton Foote

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The Orphans' Home Cycle

The story of a childhood. Part one

By: Horton Foote

THE STORY: Act One: Roots in a Parched Ground. When his father dies and his mother and sister move to Houston, Horace Robedaux is left behind in Harrison, Texas with his feuding relatives, the Robedauxs and the Thorntons.Act Two: Convicts. Horace take

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Dramatists Play Service Inc

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822224755

ISBN 13

9780822224754

In Hope of Liberty

Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860

By: James O. Horton,Lois E. Horton

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In Hope of Liberty

Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860

By: James O. Horton,Lois E. Horton

Prince Hall, a black veteran of the American Revolution, was insulted and disappointed but probably not surprised when white officials refused his offer of help. He had volunteered a troop of 700 Boston area blacks to help quell a rebellion of western Massachusetts farmers led by Daniel Shays during the economic turmoil in the uncertain period following independence. Many African Americans had fought for America's liberty and their own in the Revolution, but their place in the new nation was unresolved. As slavery was abolished in the North, free blacks gained greater opportunities, but still faced a long struggle against limits to their freedom, against discrimination, and against southern slavery. The lives of these men and women are vividly described in In Hope of Liberty, spanning the 200 years and eight generations from the colonial slave trade to the Civil War. In this marvelously peopled history, James and Lois Horton introduce us to a rich cast of characters. There are familiar historical figures such as Crispus Attucks, a leader of the Boston Massacre and one of the first casualties of the American Revolution; Sojourner Truth, former slave and eloquent antislavery and women's rights activist whose own family had been broken by slavery when her son became a wedding present for her owner's daughter; and Prince Whipple, George Washington's aide, easily recognizable in the portrait of Washington crossing the Delaware River. And there are the countless men and women who struggled to lead their daily lives with courage and dignity: Zilpha Elaw, a visionary revivalist who preached before crowds of thousands; David James Peck, the first black to graduate from an American medical school in 1848; Paul Cuffe, a successful seafaring merchant who became an ardent supporter of the black African colonization movement; and Nancy Prince, at eighteen the effective head of a scattered household of four siblings, each boarded in different homes, who at twenty-five was formally presented to the Russian court. In a seamless narrative weaving together all these stories and more, the Hortons describe the complex networks, both formal and informal, that made up free black society, from the black churches, which provided a sense of community and served as a training ground for black leaders and political action, to the countless newspapers which spoke eloquently of their aspirations for blacks and played an active role in the antislavery movement, to the informal networks which allowed far-flung families to maintain contact, and which provided support and aid to needy members of the free black community and to fugitives from the South. Finally, they describe the vital role of the black family, the cornerstone of this variegated and tightly knit community In Hope of Liberty brilliantly illuminates the free black communities of the antebellum North as they struggled to reconcile conflicting cultural identities and to work for social change in an atmosphere of racial injustice. As the black community today still struggles with many of the same problems, this insightful history reminds us how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go.

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