Oscar-Winner William Monahan's (Poorly Documented) Past Life
Posted by: Jon Fine on February 26, 2007
Long before he published a novel and waaay before he won an Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Departed, William Monahan was an excellent and scabrous writer for the weekly New York Press.
In particular, I recall one piece about heroin he wrote in 1996 that was sort-of OK until you got well into it, at which point he began talking about an afternoon a week or so previous that he’d spent under its influence. And at which point it got much more vivid and affecting. (It clearly touched a nerve in NY Press readers, who wrote letters to the paper that got far beyond the standard cant articles about heroin usually provoke.)
I’ve spent the last hour trolling the New York Press Web site, Google, and online databases for any sign of said piece and am coming up with absolutely no trace of it whatsoever—save for a column in Newsday from summer ‘96 that referenced it. (And which was written by, um, Jon Fine.)
Anyway, Monahan’s piece was great, as was most of his stuff he wrote for the Press back then. It’s a minor drag that it all seems pretty much lost now, but things have turned out pretty well for him. Congrats, William.
