Synopses & Reviews
A comprehensive analysis of all Lee Smith’s fiction, including her short stories, this study argues that Smith’s fiction examines the psychological challenges of living in a society that is, on some level, “rootless.” Using post-structuralist theory and narratology, Bennett elucidates Smith’s unique narrative explorations of identity. She argues that Smith has made an important contribution to southern literature, in her consistent focus on the southerner’s post–Civil War self-conflict, and to contemporary literature in general.
Synopsis
A comprehensive analysis of all of Lee Smith s fiction up through her 2006 novel, On Agate Hill, including her short stories, this study argues that Smith s fiction examines the psychological challenges of living in a society that is, on some level, rootless. Using post-structuralist theory and narratology, Bennett elucidates Smith s unique narrative explorations of identity. She argues that Smith has made an important contribution to Southern literature, in her consistent focus on the Southerner s post Civil War self-conflict, and to contemporary literature in general."
Synopsis
Smith's body of work examines the influence of significant factors--
such as place, memory, art, tradition, social expectation, media,
religion, history, and story--on personal identity. Enriching her
treatment of the subject, she explores this issue always with a
consciousness of the self's ultimate indeterminability. In twelve
novels and four collections of short stories, Smith draws us into
a rigorous exploration of the self, the location and essence of
which are often sought in a landscape of shifting and imagined
markers.
About the Author
Tanya Long Bennett is a professor of English at the University of North Georgia, where she has taught for thirteen years. She earned her PhD in English at the University of Tennessee. Her research focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction, as well as gender studies.