Sam Shepard's "Spy of the First Person" Posthumously Published - Preambles to Mortality

Sam Sheperd (b Amer 1943-2017) was a Renaissance Man.  He was Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Oscar nominated actor and was a finalist for the W H Smith Literary award for his story collection and accomplished musician.  He was a member of the Amer. Acad. of Arts & Letters and an inductee into the Theater Hall of Fame.  Sheperd left a legacy of more than 50 plays and appeared in over 60 films.  He also left a legacy of two sons, Jesse and Walker and daughter Hannah.  Sheperd's final literary work "Spy of the First Person" was completed days before his passing in July and published posthumously.  The prose is an elegiac musing of his past, his family's history, social issues and his progressing illness.  It reads in part as a fable and in part as a memoir.  His narrative directed to the reader is intimate and revelatory.  "I'm not trying to prove anything to you.  I'm not trying to prove that I was the father you believed me to be when you were very young.  I've made some mistakes but I have no idea what they were.  And I've never desired to start over again.  I have no desire to eliminate pats of myself."  The novel has a magical sense of time which is hazy & perplexing.   As Sheperd mulls "Once upon a time - once upon a period in the past.  Many different things going on and so many of these different things seemed to matter.  Now they don't.  Then they did, but now they don't."  There is a voyeur glimpse of a doppelgänger figure whose declining health mirrors his own waning capabilities.  "Spy of the First Person" is a preamble requiem of a life filled with adventure, achievements and accolades.  Sheperd's eminent fulfilment came from familial love and the assurance of his progeny.   "I'll never forget the strength I felt from my two boys behind me.  Following us were my daughter Hannah, both my sisters and my daughter-in-law."  "The thing I remember most is being more or less helpless and the strength of my sons."