num_pages: 173
description: 'Big Daddy' Pollitt, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta, is about to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday. His two sons have returned home for the Gooper, his wife and children, Brick, an ageing football hero who has turned to drink, and his feisty wife Maggie. As the hot summer evening unfolds, the veneer of happy family life and Southern gentility gradually slips away as unpleasant truths emerge and greed, lies, jealousy and suppressed sexuality threaten to reach boiling point. Made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is a masterly portrayal of family tensions and individuals trapped in prisons of their own making.
language: English
title: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
titlecomplete: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (A New Directions Book)
characters: Big Mama Pollitt, Big Daddy Pollitt, Mae Pollitt, Brick Pollitt, Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt, Gooper Pollitt
genres: 20th Century, Literature, American, Classics, School, Drama, Plays, Southern, Fiction, Theatre
ratings_count: 59819
places: Mississippi, The United States of America
awards: awardedAt: -473356800000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: Drama, awardedAt: -473356800000
name: New York Drama Critics' Circle Award
category: Best American Play
publisher: New Directions