Since the publication in 1964 of his novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, which arguably achieved the status of a cult classic, Hubert Selby, Jr., has held a place as one of the foremost exponents of American underground literature. His work has yet to receive extensive critical attention, in part because of its deliberately shocking subject matter and its resistance to precise classification. In Understanding Hubert Selby, Jr., James R. Giles examines the writer's four novels and one collection of short stories to make the case that the full complexity of his fiction has not previously been...

Understanding Jill McCorkle introduces readers to the novels and short story collections of Jill McCorkle's growing canon. Since 1984 McCorkle has written five novels and two books of short stories, entering the publishing world, as one reviewer noted, with the literary equivalent of a rebel yell. Filling the gap of critical study on McCorkle, Barbara Bennett analyzes the widely read and admired output of this prolific southern woman writer. Bennett identifies and discusses the diverse characters, thematic concerns and keen sense of language that distinguish McCorkle's work.

Understanding Bobbie Ann Mason explores the literary accomplishments of a writer whose works straddle the line between highbrow literature and popular culture, an author whose writings are studied in academia and loved by general readers. Best known for her short story collections and her novels Feather Crowns, Spence + Lila, and In Country -- the last of which is also a motion picture -- Mason writes about smalltown life in contemporary western Kentucky. In this comprehensive analysis, Joanna Price offers an introduction to Mason's nonfiction prose, short stories, and novels, and sheds light...

Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Age of Maturity, 1970-2000 explores the major trends and developments during three decades that witnessed science fiction's most dramatic progression from subliterary escapist entertainment to a more sophisticated literature of ideas. Darren Harris-Fain suggests that to understand American science fiction fully, it is essential to realize that the current field with all its variety results from the proceeding decades of writings. In addition, he contends that although much science fiction of merit was written in America prior to 1970,...

This is a comprehensive guide to the writing career of the author of "Angels in America"."Understanding Tony Kushner" surveys the acclaimed writings of the author of the Pulitzer Prize - winning drama "Angels in America" and coauthor of the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for the film "Munich". Viewing Kushner as a sociopolitical dramatist in the tradition of Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, and Bertolt Brecht, James Fisher guides readers through Kushner's influences and creations to map the importance of the writer's body of work in expanding the postmodern literary and cultural...

The recipient of the 1998 O Henry Award and the 2004 Rea Award for the Short Story, Lorrie Moore is best known for her short fiction. This book shows that Moore's virtuosic prose, wry humor, and sense of irony are tools for registering how Americans face the discomfort of their daily lives as individuals and as a nation.

Understanding David Mamet analyzes the broad range of David Mamet's plays and places them in the context of his career as a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction prose as well as drama.
In addition to playwriting and directing for the theater, Mamet also writes, directs, and produces for film and television, and he writes essays, fiction, poetry, and even children s books. The author remains best known for depicting men in gritty, competitive work environments and for his vernacular dialogue (known in the theater as Mametspeak ), which has raised the expletive to an art form. In this...

Nicholas F. Radel's Understanding Edmund White, the first book-length critical study of White's work, examines America's best-known gay novelist within the changing social contexts of the past half-century, when gay and lesbian people moved from being seen as psychologically deviant to being increasingly accepted as productive members of society. Radel explores the ways White documents this cultural transition, in both his fiction and his nonfiction, and contributes to it by making gay writing a source for new knowledge of sexuality.Taking into account recent scholarship on White, Radel...

Understanding Sharon Olds explores this Pulitzer Prize winning poet s major themes, characters, life, and career, including her often-controversial portrayals of family dysfunction, sexuality, and violence against women. In this first book dedicated entirely to the poetry of Sharon Olds, Russell Brickey examines how Olds approaches these difficult and complex topics with pathos and intimate, sometimes provocatively private, details through poetry that not all her critics appreciate.
Olds has never shied away from difficult subject matter. Her first award-winning book, Satan Says, is a...

Among the most celebrated American poets of the past half century, Adrienne Rich was the recipient of awards ranging from the Bollingen Prize, to the National Book Award, to the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award. In Understanding Adrienne Rich, Jeannette E. Riley assesses the full scope of Rich s long career from 1957 to her death in 2012 through a chronological exploration of her poetry and prose. Beginning with Rich s first two formally traditional collections, published in the late 1950s, then moving to the increasingly radical collections of the 1960s and 1970s, Riley details the...