Synopses & Reviews
This book gathers together eleven essays on important American short story sequences of the twentieth century. The introduction elucidates problems of defining the genre, cites notable instances of the form, and explores the implications of its modern emergence and popularity. Subsequent essays discuss illustrative works by such figures as Henry James, Jean Toomer, Ernest Hemingway, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, John Updike, Louise Erdrich, and Raymond Carver. Each essay also considers implications of form and arrangement in the construction of composite fictions that often produce the illusion of a fictive community.
Synopsis
In the twentieth century, many great works of American fiction have taken the form of arranged collections of short stories by a single author, such as Sherwood Andersonâs Winesburg, Ohio or Ernest Hemingwayâs In Our Time. This collection brings together eleven essays on important American story sequences and marks a pioneering investigation of a popular but seldom-discussed form of modernist writing.
Table of Contents
Introduction J. Gerald Kennedy; 1. Henry Jamesâs Incipient Poetics of the Short Story Sequence: The Finer Grain (1910) Richard A. Hocks; 2. Toomerâs Cane as narrative sequence Linda Wagner-Martin; 3. Hemingwayâs In Our Time: the biography of a book Michael Reynolds; 4. Wright writing reading: narrative strategies in Uncle Tomâs Children John Lowe; 5. The African-American voice in Faulknerâs Go Down Moses John Carlos Rowe; 6. Meditations on nonpresence: re-visioning the short story in Eudora Weltyâs The Wide Net Susan V. Donaldson; 7. Nine Stories: J. D. Salingerâs linked mysteries Ruth Prigozy; 8. Cheeverâs Shady Hill: a suburban sequence Scott Donaldson; 9. John Updikeâs Olinger Stories: new light among the shadows Robert M. Luscher; 10. Louise Erdrichâs Love Medicine: narrative communities and the short story sequence Hertha D. Wong; 11. From Andersonâs Winesburg to Carverâs Cathedral: the short story sequence and the semblance of community J. Gerald Kennedy.