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Clifford Odets: American Playwright By Margaret Brenman-Gibson Atheneum, 748 pp., $30

Clifford Odets, in speaking for himself, became a spokesman for left-leaning members of the disillusioned middle class during the Great Depression of the 1930s. His early plays brought an extraordinary talent for youthful rhetoric to the service of liberalism’s golden age. He was quoted on the cover of Time: “Down with the general fraud!” His dialogue made history, from the immortal “strike, strike, strike!!!” at the end of Waiting for Lefty to the immortally absurd “We could have made wonderful music together” from his first movie, The General Died at Dawn.

JR

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James M. Rawley

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Clifford Odets: American Playwright By Margaret Brenman-Gibson Atheneum, 748 pp., $30

Clifford Odets, in speaking for himself, became a spokesman for left-leaning members of the disillusioned middle class during the Great Depression of the 1930s. His early plays brought an extraordinary talent for youthful rhetoric to the service of liberalism’s golden age. He was quoted on the cover of Time: “Down with the general fraud!” His dialogue made history, from the immortal “strike, strike, strike!!!” at the end of Waiting for Lefty to the immortally absurd “We could have made wonderful music together” from his first movie, The General Died at Dawn.