The Book of Grace

“The Book of Grace offers further evidence that Suzan-Lori Parks thinks big even when she thinks small… The family portrait she paints here is nothing less than a map of a nation that is divided within itself and poised to fall… This play is infused with an exciting emotional ambiguity that transforms its characters into people of splendidly confused humanity.” –Ben Brantley, New York Times

“Suzan-Lori Parks has laid out the conflicts among these characters with such economy and clarity that they run like a taut steel cord throughout the play; it’s as lean and direct a drama as she’s written.” –Robert Faires, Austin Chronicle

Encouraged by his stepmother to return home to South Texas, a young man reunites with his abusive father, unearthing an explosive combination of deep-seated passion and ambition. Described by Suzan-Lori Parks as a companion piece to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog, this fierce and intimate three-person drama premiered in 2010 at New York’s Public Theater, and is published here with the playwright’s final, revised text.

In 2002 Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Topdog/Underdog. Her other plays include Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, &3), In the Blood, Venus, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom and The America Play. In 2007 her 365 Days/365 Plays was produced in more than seven hundred theaters worldwide. Ms. Parks is a MacArthur Fellow and Master Writer Chair at The Public Theater.