On the Boardwalk

<p>A memoir from the writer of BENT with a foreword by Ian McKellen</p><p>Sherman takes us on a journey through America in the mid twentieth century, starting in New Jersey – where he was born in the 1930s to a Jewish immigrant family – ending on Broadway with the premier of his seminal play <em>Bent</em> starring Richard Gere. On route, we encounter other famous performers including Meryl Streep, Bee Gees, Joan Baez, but the scene-stealing character is always his father – a charismatic narcissist who might have given Trump a run for his money. We stop off in Woodstock, Los Angeles and London – a city Martin would eventually make home; he relays his story with self-depreciating humour as he struggles to make it in theatre, with his sexuality, and under the shadow of the inheritable disease that killed his mother tragically early – a disease from which he finds himself finally free, as he turns forty in the book's closing pages.</p><p>Editor Nathan Evans says, <em>'It's an honour to be working with Martin on his memoir: he's such an important cultural figure, and a mentor for me, personally. I remember being nineteen, sat in the back of my parents' car surrounded by boxes: I was on my way back to university, learning lines for a play I was in later that term. Mum turned around and asked what it was about; I didn't need to answer: I simply showed her the cover, with those four bold letters. Although it would take her some more months to ask the next question, she knew then; I am just one of the many, many young men – from 1979 right through to the present – who've been so emboldened by Bent. This is the story of the man who had the honesty, and the bravery to write it.'</em></p>