This is the first volume of the definitive biography of Clifford Odets, encompassing the explosively creative period that bore six plays, among them Awake and Sing (1935), Waiting for Lefty (1935), and Golden Boy (1937). Called by Erik Erikson "a breakthrough in life-history writing," it dissects the three worlds -- family, theater, and the thirties -- in which the unsuccessful and tormented young actor was lost until, by writing plays, he brought them into a unity, becoming the dramatist laureate of the decade. - Jacket flap.