The twentieth century has seen two great waves of African American migration from rural areas into the city, changing not only the country's demographics but also black culture. In her thorough study of migration to Houston, Bernadette Pruitt portrays the move from rural to urban homes in Jim Crow Houston as a form of black activism and resistance to racism. Between 1900 and 1950 nearly fifty thousand blacks left their rural communities and small towns in Texas and Louisiana for Houston. Jim Crow proscription, disfranchisement, acts of violence and brutality, and rural poverty pushed them from their homes; the lure of social advancement and prosperity based on urban-industrial development drew them. Houston's close proximity to basic minerals, innovations in transportation, increased trade, augmented economic revenue, and industrial development prompted white families, commercial businesses, and industries near the Houston Ship Channel to recruit blacks and other immigrants to the city as domestic laborers and wage earners. Using census data, manuscript collections, government records, and oral history interviews, Pruitt details who the migrants were, why they embarked on their journeys to Houston, the migration networks on which they relied, the jobs they held, the neighborhoods into which they settled, the culture and institutions they transplanted into the city, and the communities and people they transformed in Houston.

The story of D.C. Caughran Jr., Mrs. Cordie's son, could be that of almost any soldier in World War II. He left the comfort of home and family to become part of one of the defining conflicts of modern times. The letters he wrote home tell his story from the day he received his draft notice in the summer of 1942 through battle, capture, wounding, imprisonment, and his eventual return home for recuperation and discharge.Author Rocky R. Miracle, the son-in-law of D.C. Caughran, tells not only Caughran's story, but at the same time the story of ""the home folks"" who anxiously watched for letters from their ""soldier boy"" and wrote faithfully of their love and prayers for his safety. This home-front narrative also stands as an important and deeply personal record of life in wartime.Taken prisoner during the German breakout of December 1944 that led to the Battle of the Bulge, D.C. was force-marched past corpses lining the road into Germany, loaded with other American prisoners into boxcars, and held in a prison camp during the coldest European winter of the century. He suffered starvation rations and hepatitis and was hospitalized after his liberation, though doctors were doubtful that he would recover. However, with time and care, he returned to health, was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, and lived a long, productive life.This intimate portrait of an American family - at home and at war - during a time of world upheaval is at once heartwarming, sobering, and entertaining. ""Mrs. Cordie's Soldier Son"" is highly recommended for readers interested in World War II, the POW experience, and home-front literature.

Understanding Will Self introduces readers to the satire and expressive ingenuity of a British writer who has garnered an array of awards since the 1991 publication of his first short story collection, ""The Quantity Theory of Sanity"". In this guide to the well-received but largely unstudied writer, M. Hunter Hayes examines the key themes, narrative strategies, and cultural commentaries that characterize Self's work. Through close textual analyses, Hayes guides readers through the alternative universe of Self's writing and maps the interplay between his forays into journalism and fiction. Marked by their combination of seemingly improbable events and quotidian details, Self's novels, novellas, and short stories examine contemporary English life through a mode of writing that he has aptly termed ""dirty magical realism."" Hayes shows how recurring characters have evolved through successive works and in relation with their environments. He places Self's writing within its historical and critical contexts and uses each chapter to address either a single work or a group of closely connected works. Hayes' analyses range from well-regarded novels to notable yet uncollected short stories and draw upon secondary critical texts to reassess Self's critical standing.