Tom The Unknown, Tennessee Williams, by Lyle Leverich (Sceptre, £8.99 in UK)

It is hard to see in the early Williams the exhibitionistic, media loving, hard drinking, openly homosexual playwright of his later years, yet e duobus unum. The Glass Menagerie in 1945 put him on the road to success, which he never left until the end; as is well known, it dramatised the relationship between himself with his sister, Rose, who later disintegrated into total breakdown. Though Williams distorted the facts of, his early life, Leverich has apparently had access to many facts and documents and the picture he builds up seems entirely convincing and in no way diminishes him as a writer or as a man. The book ends, appropriately, with the red letter year of 1945 already mentioned.