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Series Editors: Gary Scharnhorst, University of New Mexico and Eric Haralson, State University of New York, Stony Brook

This is the only series to provide in-depth critical introductions to major modern and contemporary short story writers worldwide. Each volume offers:

A comprehensive overview of the artists short fiction-including detailed analyses of every significant story Interviews, essays, memoirs and other biographical materials -- often previously unpublished A representative selection of critical responses Acomprehensive primary bibliography, a selected bibliography of important criticism, a chronology of the artists life and works and an index

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Preface(p. xi)
• Acknowledgments(p. xiii)
• Part 1. The Short Fiction
• Introduction(p. 3)
• Travelers and Pilgrims: Looking for Love, Purpose, and Fulfillment in Many of the Wrong Places(p. 7)
• Cultivators of Their Own Gardens: Invoking the Pastoral(p. 47)
• Craftspeople and Artists: Assembling the Parts of a Coherent Whole(p. 59)
• Conclusion(p. 100)
• Notes to Part 1(p. 101)
• Part 2. The Writer
• Introduction(p. 109)
• An Interview with Bobbie Ann Mason(p. 110)
• An Interview with Bobbie Ann Mason(p. 128)
• Part 3. The Critics
• Introduction(p. 137)
• Richard Giannone(p. 138)
• Leslie White(p. 152)
• Chronology(p. 163)
• Selected Bibliography(p. 166)
• Index(p. 171)

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In this first book-length study of Mason's fiction, Wilhelm (Tennessee Technological Univ.) discusses 24 of the 31 works in the collections Shiloh and Other Stories (1982) and Love Life (1989). Best known for In Country (1985), her novel about the teen-age daughter of a Vietnam War casualty, Mason typically writes about the efforts of ordinary people from small-town western Kentucky to adjust to contemporary culture. Change barrels down the highways and rides the airwaves, and Mason's characters "attempt to fit together pieces of the puzzle, to see the pattern, to comprehend the mystery." Wilhelm observes "three basic sorts of behavior" in the stories and divides Mason's protagonists into the travelers, who leave home to seek fulfillment; the "cultivators of their own gardens," who sometimes find community in returning to nature; and the "crafts-people," whose "gardens" are their minds and whose art ranges from Leroy's craft kits in "Shiloh" to Louise's paintings of an "elusive fruit" in "Still Life with Watermelon." Wilhelm includes two interviews with Mason (one of them new) and also reprints essays by Richard Giannone and Leslie White on the "metaphysical core" of Mason's fiction and her "pervasive allusions to popular culture." Highly recommended for all academic and public libraries. J. W. Hall; University of Mississippi

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Albert Wilhelm is a professor of English at Tennessee Technological University