KNOWING WHEN TO STOP

He is among America's great living composers. His prose has won him distinction in literary circles. Now, in a revealing memoir covering his first twenty-eight years, ending in 1951 when his published diaries begin, but always with the perceptive wisdom and chagrin made inevitable by the intervening years, Ned Rorem analyzes his astonishing career. Published in four volumes, Ned Rorem's diaries - an ongoing chronicle of his life and work - have taken on cult status and have won plaudits everywhere. "Rorem is a marvelous writer," raved James Dickey. "His prose is supple, vivid, arresting,"…