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This book looks at British Politics in the 1760s and 1770s during
the American Revolution. Perry looks particularly at colonialism
and the colonial administration, and at the general conduct of the
war with America. He also surveys the development of radialism in
Britain subsequent to the war and looks at constitutional
developments during this period in Britain and America.
A critical companion to the striking variety of contemporary
southern literature. Contributions by Barbara Bennett, Thomas
AErvold Bjerre, Erik Bledsoe, Linda Byrd Cook, Thomas E. Dasher,
Robert Donahoo, Peter Farris, Richard Gaughran, William Giraldi,
Rebecca Godwin, Joan Wylie Hall, Marcus Hamilton, Gary Hawkins,
David K. Jeffrey, Emily Langhorne, Shawn E. Miller, Wade Newhouse,
L. Lamar Nisly, bes Stark Spangler, Joe Samuel Starnes, and Scott
Hamilton Suter. Essays in Rough South, Rural South describe and
discuss the work of southern writers who began their careers in the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. They fall into two
categories. Some, born into the working class, strove to become
writers and learned without benefit of higher education, such
writers as Larry Brown and William Gay. Others came from lower- or
middle-class backgrounds and became writers through practice and
education: Dorothy Allison, Tom Franklin, Tim Gautreaux, Clyde
Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons, Silas House, Jill McCorkle, Chris Offutt,
Ron Rash, Lee Smith, Brad Watson, Daniel Woodrell, and Steve
Yarbrough. Their twenty-first-century colleagues are Wiley Cash,
Peter Farris, Skip Horack, Michael Farris Smith, Barb Johnson, and
Jesmyn Ward. In his seminal article, Erik Bledsoe distinguishes
Rough South writers from such writers as William Faulkner and
Erskine Caldwell. Younger writers who followed Harry Crews were
born into and write about the Rough South. These writers undercut
stereotypes, forcing readers to see the working poor differently.
The next pieces begin with those on Crews and Cormac McCarthy,
major influences on an entire generation. Later essays address
members of both groups--the self-educated and the college-educated.
Both groups share a clear understanding of the value of
working-class southerners. Nearly all of the writers hold a
reverence for the South's landscape and its inhabitants as well as
an affinity for realistic depictions of setting and characters.
The controversial, almost mythic Louisiana politician Huey P. Long
inspired not just one but six American novels, published between
1934 and 1946. And he continues to resonate in American cultural
memory, appearing in a 1995 work of historical fiction. The
Kingfish in Fiction offers the first study of all six
""Hueys-who-aren't-Hueys"" as they strut and bluster their way
across the literary page, each character with his own particular
story, each towing a different authorial agenda. Keith Perry
carefully dissects the intertwining of documented history and
artistic invention in Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here,
Hamilton Basso's Cinnamon Seed and Sun in Capricorn, John Dos
Passos's Number One, Adria Locke Langley's A Lion Is in the
Streets, and Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. Perry
explains that Lewis cast his version of the Kingfish as a
totalitarian menace, a sort of homegrown Hitler, in what Lewis
later admitted was an unapologetic attempt to sabotage Long's
designs on the White House. Basso, one of Long's most vocal
detractors, created two Long-based characters, each a
rabble-rousing affront to what remained of the Old South order. To
warn readers of the dangers hidden in the politician-constituent
contract, Dos Passos transformed Long into a shameless manipulator
of the gullible American masses. Langley's rendition suffers
complete condemnation by its creator for personal as well as public
transgressions. Warren's spellbinding Willie Stark, almost as much
philosopher as politician, ironically bears the least resemblance
to Long though for almost six decades Stark has been Long's
best-known fictional embodiment. Exploring how and why these five
authors, among them, a Nobel laureate, one of America's most
celebrated political novelists, and a two-time Pulitzer Prize
winner, turned one politician into six fictional characters leads
Perry to conclude that Huey P. Long's lasting impression may well
be a composite of both historical and imaginative interpretation.
Essays in Rough South, Rural South describe and discuss the work of
southern writers who began their careers in the late twentieth and
early twenty-first centuries. They fall into two categories. Some,
born into the working class, strove to become writers and learned
without benefit of higher education, such writers as Larry Brown
and William Gay. Others came from lower- or middle-class
backgrounds and became writers through practice and education:
Dorothy Allison, Tom Franklin, Tim Gautreaux, Clyde Edgerton, Kaye
Gibbons, Silas House, Jill McCorkle, Chris Offutt, Ron Rash, Lee
Smith, Brad Watson, Daniel Woodrell, and Steve Yarbrough. Their
twenty-first-century colleagues are Wiley Cash, Peter Farris, Skip
Horack, Michael Farris Smith, Barb Johnson, and Jesmyn Ward. In his
seminal article, Erik Bledsoe distinguishes Rough South writers
from such writers as William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell. Younger
writers who followed Harry Crews were born into and write about the
Rough South. These writers undercut stereotypes, forcing readers to
see the working poor differently. The next pieces begin with those
on Crews and Cormac McCarthy, major influences on an entire
generation. Later essays address members of both groups - the
self-educated and the college-educated. Both groups share a clear
understanding of the value of working-class southerners. Nearly all
of the writers hold a reverence for the South's landscape and its
inhabitants as well as an affinity for realistic depictions of
setting and characters.
With contributions from Robert G. Barrier, Robert Beuka, Thomas
A rvold Bjerre, Jean W. Cash, Robert Donahoo, Richard Gaughran,
Gary Hawkins, Darlin' Neal, Keith Perry, Katherine Powell, John A.
Staunton, and Jay Watson
Larry Brown is noted for his subjects--rural life, poverty, war,
and the working class--and his spare, gritty style. Brown's oeuvre
spans several genres and includes acclaimed novels ("Dirty Work,"
"Joe," "Father and Son," "The Rabbit Factory," and "A Miracle of
Catfish"), short story collections ("Facing the Music," "Big Bad
Love"), memoir ("On Fire"), and essay collections ("Billy Ray's
Farm"). At the time of his death, Brown (1951-2004) was considered
to be one of the finest exemplars of minimalist, raw writing of the
contemporary South.
"Larry Brown and the Blue-Collar South" considers the writer's
full body of work, placing it in the contexts of southern
literature, Mississippi writing, and literary work about the
working class. Collectively, the essays explore such subjects as
Brown's treatment of class politics, race and racism, the
aftereffects of the Vietnam War on American culture, the evolution
of the South from a plantation-based economy to a postindustrial
one, and male-female relations. The role of Brown's mentors--Ellen
Douglas and Barry Hannah--in shaping his work is discussed, as is
Brown's connection to such writers as Harry Crews and Dorothy
Allison. The volume is one of the first critical studies of a
writer whose depth and influence mark him as one of the most
well-regarded Mississippi authors.
Jean W. Cash is professor of English at James Madison
University. She is the author of "Flannery O'Connor: A Life." Keith
Perry is associate professor of English at Dalton State College and
the author of "The Kingfish in Fiction: Huey P. Long and the Modern
American Novel." Rick Bass is the author of novels and collections
of nonfiction and short stories, most recently "The Lives of Rocks:
Stories.""
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