Dive Deeper: The Gig

Explore the real-life experiences that shaped Tennessee Williams’ 1975 novel Moise and the World of Reason, through a revealing 1973 interview with Playboy Magazine and a compelling essay that traces Williams’ personal connections to the work. 

Listen More: Tennessee Williams Interview with Playboy Magazine

Available for free on Audible.com, this recreated audio interview stars actor Michael Shannon as Tennessee Williams, speaking verbatim as the playwright from his 1973 conversation with Playboy. The wide-ranging interview covers his work, his artistic inspirations, and his sexuality, in a frank one-hour conversation. The interview can be found here (a free sign-up to Audible may be required). 

Read More: “The Blue Jays of My Life” An Autobiographical Approach to Moise and the World of Reason by Shelley Akers (from The Tennessee Williams Annual Review)

Shelley Akers’s essay offers a deeply personal lens on Moise and the World of Reason, revealing how Tennessee Williams used fiction as emotional survival in a post-Stonewall world. Through vivid parallels between Williams’s life and his narrator’s confessions, the essay explores writing as both therapy and defiance in the face of societal repression. The essay is an invitation to witness Williams’s most intimate truths—told with the “detached eye of art” yet pulsing with raw vulnerability. The essay can be found here.