Spalding Gray and His "Black Spot"

The comic monologue master was taken to a small hospital in a remote corner of Ireland after a near-fatal car crash last summer. Now Gray, who has already begun to talk about his experience there in his latest act, is to expand the whole thing into a book called Black Spot for senior editor Doug Pepper at Crown. Gray was celebrating his 60th birthday (or rather wondering where all that time had gone) when he had his accident, said Pepper, and the book will not only be a wry account of his hospital stay, surrounded by eccentric nurses and visitors and less than state-of-the-art medical equipment, but will also feature some thoughts on aging. Pepper bought the book on the basis of hearing a tape and talking to Gray himself, and it will be published probably late next year, around the time a new monologue on the subject is ready. Pepper bought North American rights (but not audio, which is a big deal for Gray) from the artist's longtime agent, Suzanne Gluck at William Morris.