The October List

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We have Stephen Sondheim to thank for this book. Several years ago I was listening to a National Public Radio interview by the inimitable Terry Gross, on her Fresh Air program, with Sondheim, one of my favorite musical theater composers and lyricists. One of the plays he discussed was Merrily We Roll Along, which happened to be perhaps the only play of his I had not seen. I was fascinated by the fact that it began in the present and moved back in time. Of particular interest was his comment about a song that meant one thing in the present, and meant something different when first (well, later) introduced.

I happen to love the concept of a fractured time line. Look at Stanley Kubrick’s second best film, The Killing (Strangelove — not 2001 — is my number one), or Pulp Fiction, Memento, Back to the Future. And, of course, the classic Seinfeld episode “The Betrayal,” which was an homage to Harold Pinter’s own reverse-chronology play, Betrayal.

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