SOURCE: Brustein, Robert. “Shepard's Choice.” New Republic 215, nos. 3/4 (15-22 July 1996): 27-9.

In the following essay, Brustein offers a mixed assessment of Shepard's works, particularly Buried Child and Cruising Paradise, within the context of Shepard's attitudes towards being a celebrity.

Challenging the camera over a period of thirty years, Sam Shepard's face appears in sepia and black-and-white on the jackets of three newly issued books. The chiseled bones, the two deep furrows in his forehead, the uncombed mane and dimpled chin are physical constants. What the camera also reveals is how the acid of years and circumstance have etched radical mutations in Shepard's appearance. Something more than passing time is responsible for his transformation from the youthful hipster depicted in Bruce Weber's unposed photo for The Unseen Hand and Other Plays, to the engaging, rather shy young man of Weber's cover shot for Simpatico, to the unshaven, haggard, vaguely...