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by: Joe Orton  List Price: $18.00 Amazon.com's Price: $16.20 You Save: $1.80 (10%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 828.91403 EAN: 9780306807336 ISBN: 0306807335 Label: Da Capo Press Manufacturer: Da Capo Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 310 Publication Date: August 21, 1996 Publisher: Da Capo Press Studio: Da Capo Press Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: ”To be young, good-looking, healthy, famous, comparatively rich and happy is surely going against nature.” When Joe Orton (1933–1967) wrote those words in his diary in May 1967, he was being hailed as the greatest comic playwright since Oscar Wilde for his darkly hilarious Entertaining Mr. Sloane and the farce hit Loot, and was completing What the Butler Saw; but less than three months later, his longtime companion, Kenneth Halliwell, smashed in Orton’s skull with a hammer before killing himself. The Orton Diaries, written during his last eight months, chronicle in a remarkably candid style his outrageously unfettered life: his literary success, capped by an Evening Standard Award and overtures from the Beatles; his sexual escapades—at his mother's funeral, with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in Tangiers; and the breakdown of his sixteen-year "marriage" to Halliwell, the relationship that transformed and destroyed him. Edited with a superb introduction by John Lahr, The Orton Diaries is his crowning achievement. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Orton fans!!!Absolutely wonderful! A look inside the mind of a genius. Playful, honest, funny and a bit disturbing at times. Orton was a risk taker who got off on the danger of his pursuits as much as just getting off! I love this man and wish he was still around. The last few pages of his diary are missing as well, which just makes the life of Joe Orton even more intriguing. John Lahr has done a beauitful job. Rating: - Great Diary. Honest and True Confession.Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell were both murdered. It was totaly organised and cover up murder. Orton had many enemies, and many jelous homophobic people around Him. That time even in London, if one was openly Gay, and promote sex in public, it was exremely dangerous. What he did and write in his time, was totaly taboo, and not exepted in English society. Only few people knew and know the true story behind Orton and Halliwell murder. I love the book about Orton life. He was a Dare Devil for His ... Read More Rating:  - Amazingly well written, frank and honest.I think I heard of Joe Orton vaguely on a documentary about murders on TV so when I came across this book in a dollar bin, I had no idea who he was but bought it anyway because I thought it would be interesting to read a diary by a writer and a gay one at that. And it was fascinating and quarter of the way through it I went to a local used book store and found a few of his plays and read those as well. Hilarious plays where I was actually laughing out loud. So I devoured this book. ... Read More Rating: - From the Mind of a GeniusNot a book for everyone, I found it very interesting. I can't say I would recommend it for anyone but those who have an interest in the art of writing, and perhaps more specifically, the plays and short life of Joe Orton. A gay man in 1960's London, when it was not fashionable to "come out," Orton was always true to himself and to his desires (as awful as they were). He was a great playwright. He was not a great person. His diary, recorded over the last six months of his life, captures a slice of history ... Read More Rating:  - WatchdogI cannot agree with the previous reviewer's opinion regarding The Orton Diaries. Tangiers in the 1960's was a paedophile's paradise and please God, it no longer exists as such. Orton and Halliwell used young boys for their own gratification little thinking of the damage they were inflicting on them. Orton's diaries are full of his hedonistic pursuits and talented as a playwrite he may have been, for the sake of those children he abused, the publishers of The Orton Diaries, Methuen, should be banned ... Read More 
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