I knew the actor Sam Shepard, the screenwriter, the playwright, but not the writer before receiving from a friend his last book, The Spy Who Is In Me, completed a few days before his death. To go back a little on his career, it should be remembered that he was an actor in the films The Harvests of Wrath, by Richard Pearce, or even The stuff of heroes, by Philip Kaufman (Oscar for best supporting role in 1984) . He was the author of more than forty plays and crowned with the Pulitzer Prize for theatrical work. He was the screenwriter of the famous: Zabriskie Point, by Michelangelo Antonioni, and Paris Texas, by Wim Wenders. It sets the tone. Absurdity, discrepancy, marginality would be enough qualifiers to describe his work. In the midst of all these activities, he was also a writer. In The Spy Inside Me, a man looks at a man who notices the other man looking at him. Here is the pitch. It’s sober. They dialogue from one chapter to another: “I’m not sure what he sees at this moment, the air is so opaque, I’m not sure of what I see myself. Is he talking to himself, or to someone, or what?
(…) He eats cheese and crackers all day. Sip iced tea. (…) It seems that he often needs to go to the toilet or I don’t know where. He gets up, shaking, looking like he’s going to collapse. (…) It oscillates from right to left, flaps its wings, seems regarding to tumble… but no. Sometimes he calls one of his people – among his sons, daughters or close relatives such as his sisters – with gestures and then they go out on the porch. In other words, he gets up, wobbles, repeats these endless things, cheese and crackers, reading, then he calls someone and they take care of him, guide him inside holding him by one arm , and he walks through a swinging door and disappears into a dark house. To the other to retort: “Why is he watching me?
I can not understand. Nothing seems to work now. Hands. Arm. Legs. Nothing. I just lay there. Waiting for someone to find me. I just look at the sky. I can smell his scent nearby. We understand that these two men are probably one and the same person, one observing the other sick, handicapped. They say that with age, you refine, you go to the essentials and that’s exactly what I felt when reading this book: there is only man, the earth, nature. “In the past there were orchards as far as the eye might see. Like on postcards. Orchards of orange trees, olive trees, vines, avocado trees, lemon trees, pear trees. Each species corresponding to the nationality of those who had brought it here. Here, it’s the United States, we cross the country, we go from Arizona to Alcatraz to Manhattan. It’s a short text that leaves you wondering, which makes you think regarding one of the most painful subjects in this world: the approaching death and the life that remains. We read The Spy who is in me by rereading it to grasp the unsaid, the nuances, the mystery. The answer to the riddle of this book (if there is one) I found in the epigraph of another book by Sam Shepard, a collection of short stories, entitled Halfway. The writer quotes Peter Handke: “Once upon a time it was said that God’s elect ‘will see the sky’. My only wish would be to see the earth, forever. »
“The Spy in Me” by Sam Shepard.
Translated from English (United States) by Benard Cohen.
Robert Laffont – Pavilions Collection.
Release of the paperback version (Pavillons Poche Collection) on April 7, 2023.
I knew the actor Sam Shepard, the screenwriter, the playwright, but not the writer before receiving from a friend his last book, The Spy Who Is In Me, completed a few days before his death. To go back a little on his career, it should be remembered that he was an actor in the films The Harvests of Wrath, by Richard Pearce, or even The stuff of heroes, by Philip…