“August Wilson: A Life”
Patti Hartigan
Simon & Schuster, $32.50

I have this sort of love-hate relationship with Pittsburgh,” the playwright August Wilson said in an interview with the Post-Gazette’s drama critic Christopher Rawson in 1994. “This is my home and at times I miss it and find it tremendously exciting, and other times I want to catch the first thing out that has wheels.”

Wilson, who died from liver cancer in 2005 at the age of 60, was born and raised in the Hill District before settling in St. Paul, Minnesota, and later Seattle. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for drama, a Tony Award and many other awards for his groundbreaking series of plays known as The Century Cycle, of which all except one takes place in Pittsburgh.

Patti Hartigan’s exhaustive and fascinating biography, “August Wilson: A Life,” provides insight into how Wilson’s complicated relationship with Pittsburgh and his family history informed the indelible characters and stories he created in his work. Hartigan, who has written about Wilson many times in her career as a drama critic for the Boston Globe and other outlets, creates a sympathetic and compelling portrait of the playwright. A full-length biography of Wilson was long overdue and Hartigan’s book is a solid and welcome look at a remarkable artist.

Ben Gwin follows up his 2018 novel “Clean Time,” a comedic romp through America’s fascination with celebrity culture, recovery and academia, with a story that hits much closer to home. In 2019, Gwin played a significant role in unionizing contract workers at the local Google offices, where he was employed via the third-party company HCL.

“Team Building: A Memoir about Family
and the Fight for Workers’ Rights”
Ben Gwin
Belt Publishing, $17

“Team Building: A Memoir about Family and the Fight for Workers’ Rights” is an inside look at the little-discussed working conditions experienced in the tech industry. The story of unionizing the office and renegotiating workers’ contracts is told concurrently with a much more personal event in Gwin’s life, the death of his young daughter’s mother from a drug overdose. The reader comes away from “Team Building” with the understanding of just how precarious our work and home lives can be. With prose that is clean and focused, the author pulls no punches in this outstanding memoir.