Alec Wilkinson writes of Maxwell as mentor; Edward Hirsch remembers him in old age; Charles Baxter illuminates the magnificent novel So Long, See You Tomorrow; Ben Cheever recalls Maxwell and his own father; Donna Tartt vividly describes Maxwell's kindness to herself as a first novelist; and Michael Collier admires him as a supreme literary correspondent. Other appreciations include insightful pieces by Alice Munro, Anthony Hecht, a poem by John Updike, and a brief tribute from Paula Fox. Ending this splendid collection is Maxwell himself, in the unpublished speech "The Writer as Illusionist."... View More...
In this varied collection of commemorative essays, fiction, and poetry, some of today's most important writers pay tribute to the genius of Flannery O'Connor. Included are contributions from both those who called O'Connor a friend and those who have learned from her as students through the timelessness of her written word. The diversity and avidity of those who revere the wry Georgia writer as an artist is testimony to the genius of a woman whose continuing influence extends well beyond the insularity of her world and brevity of her life.
Pat Conroy's memoirs and autobiographical novels contain a great deal about his life, but there is much he hasn't revealed to readers--until now. My Exaggerated Life is the product of a special collaboration between this great American author and oral biographer Katherine Clark, who recorded two hundred hours of conversations with Conroy before he passed away in 2016. In the spring and summer of 2014, the two spoke for an hour or more on the phone every day. No subject was off limits, including aspects of his tumultuous life he had never before revealed. This oral biography presents Conroy the... View More...
In this beautiful book of photographs and short essays, some of Appalachia's best-known writers profile each other and the place they call home. Edited by Bloodroot novelist Amy Greene and her husband Trent Thomson, this book also features Wendell Berry, Lee Smith, Crystal Wilkinson, Ron Rash, Wiley Cash, Silas House, Jason Kyle Howard, Adriana Trigiani, and others. Part photo book, part essay collection, and all praise for the mountains and valleys of the region, this book collects some of the region's greatest literary treasures for a generation of readers. View More...
Called the best English prose writer of this century by Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood is best known for "Goodbye to Berlin" the inspiration for the musical "Cabaret" but is also the author of plays, novels, and diaries. "The Isherwood Century "gathers twenty-four essays and interviews offering a fresh, in-depth view of Isherwood, his literary legacy, and his continuing influence as both a literary and a gay pioneer." View More...
"Discovering Proust is like wandering through a totally unfamiliar land and finding it peopled with kindred spirits and sister souls and fellow countrymen . . . They speak our language, our dialect, share our blind-spots and are awkward in exactly the same way we are, just as their manner of lacing every access of sorrow with slapstick reminds us so much of how we do it when we are sad and wish to hide it, that surely we are not alone and not as strange as we feared we were. And here lies the paradox. So long as a writer tells us what he and only he can see, then surely he speaks our language.... View More...
This first critical biography of Arturo Islas (1938-1991) brings to life the complex and overlapping worlds inhabited by the gay Chicano poet, novelist, scholar, and professor. Gracefully written and deeply researched, Dancing with Ghosts considers both the larger questions of Islas's life-his sexuality, racial identification, and political personality-and the events of his everyday existence, from his childhood in the borderlands of El Paso to his adulthood in San Francisco and at Stanford University. Frederick Aldama portrays the many facets of Islas's engaging and often contradictory person... View More...
Poet, dramatist, novelist, critic, teacher, and political activist Amiri Baraka, born LeRoi Jones, vividly recounts his crusading role in African American literature. A driving force behind the Black Arts Movement, the prolific Baraka retells his experiences from his participation in avant-garde literature after World War II and his role in Black nationalism after the assassination of Malcolm X to his conversion to Islam and his commitments to an international socialist vision. When The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones was first published in 1984, the publisher made substantial cuts in the copy. ... View More...
There are two portrayals of Scarlett O'Hara: the widely familiar one of the film Gone with the Wind and Margaret Mitchell's more sympathetic character in the book. In A Study of Scarletts, Margaret D. Bauer examines these two characterizations, noting that although Scarlett O'Hara is just sixteen at the start of the novel, she is criticized for behavior that would have been excused if she were a man.In the end, despite losing nearly every person she loves, Scarlett remains stalwart enough to face another day. For this reason and so many others, Scarlett is an icon in American popular culture ... View More...
A moving memoir by the husband of the great contemporary writer Dame Iris Murdoch captures the ineffable mystery and fascination that she has exerted on both him and her readers and chronicles her recent sad struggle with Alzheimer's disease. 25,000 first printing. First serial, The New Yorker. View More...
John Bayley Began writing Iris and Her Friends, a companion to the New York Times bestseller Elegy for Iris, late at night while his wife, the beloved novelist Iris Murdoch, succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease. As Iris was losing her memory, Bayley was flooded with vivid recollections of his own. In lyrical reverie, Bayley recreates the unforgettable scenes of his youth, from his birth to a civil servant in colonial India to his long romance with Iris and its heartbreaking end. This is the transcendent work of a brilliant man, whose examination of the tragedies and joys of his own life will give ... View More...
