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1959 · ref. 16378 — New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc. Near Fine. c.1959. First Edition. Stapled wraps. very light fading to edges of covers otherwise a nice clean copy with no significant wear. stage diagram A family drama about a marriage gone horribly wrong by this Monroe Louisiana native who had earlier established himself as something of a literary prodigy after graduating from Harvard at age 20. His first novel "Tiger in the Garden" 1950 published when he was just 22 was about the dessicated Louisiana aristocracy from which he himself had emerged; because of its Southern Gothic subject matter and his own reportedly effeminate manner he found himself often compared to Truman Capote. Tennessee Williams said of him "He doesn't write as well as Capote but is more agreeable." He spent much of the Fifties on the fringes of Hollywood society his sister was a voice coach and was married to a screenwriter and drew on that experience for his second novel "The Easter Egg Hunt" 1954. "Comes a Day" was adapted from his own 1950 short story for which he had received an O. Henry Award. The stage version which opened on Broadway in early November 1958 had a ton of top-flight talent involved: production by Cheryl Crawford and Alan Pakula direction by Robert Mulligan and with a cast that included Judith Anderson Brandon de Wilde George C. Scott and Eileen Ryan with young Larry Hagman and Michael J. Pollard in support. The reviews were generally positive with Scott in particularly singled out for his portrayal of a psychopath it was his Broadway debut and one critic called him "the actor of the season thus far" but the play was a box-office flop and closed at the end of the month. The playwright took it hard: he returned to Monroe never published anything else as far as I can determine and lived there until his death in 2011. . Dramatists Play Service Inc. paperback