Though brought together in a friendship that neither jealousy nor violence could shatter, the Hazards and the Mains are torn apart by the storm of events that has divided the nation. "Superb! You will gain a firsthand knowledge of life at West Point in the early 1800s...a peek at the Texas frontier, a vacation in a posh cottage at Newport...experience the savagery of war in Mexico, suffer the suspense of both the Charleston Battery and beleaguered Fort Sumter before the mortar fire that launched a war. It has been a long time since I enjoyed a book so much." (The Asheville Citizen-Times)

    The winner of numerous awards, including an NEA Award for Best Play and a Whiting Writers Award, he is an artist to watch. This volume gathers together for the first time his three major plays to date.Included herein are his latest play, Gruesome Playground Injuries, which charts the intersection of two lives using scars, wounds, and calamity as the mile markers to explore why people hurt themselves to gain another's love and the cumulative effect of such damage; Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, a "philosophical and existential investigation into the Iraq War" (Los Angeles Times), a darkly comedic drama that looks on as the lives of two American soldiers, an Iraqi translator, and a tiger intersect on the streets of Baghdad; and Animals Out of Paper, a subtle, elegant, yet bracing examination of the artistic impulse and those in its thrall. The play follows a world-famous origamist as she becomes the unwitting mentor to a troubled young prodigy, even as she must deal with her own loss of inspiration.

    From high-class hookers to 7/7 survivors these monologues paint a revelatory picture of Britain as it is today. After rave reviews at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival and in New York, "Eight" opened in London's West End in July 2009.