"Understanding Robert Penn Warren" offers a comprehensive introduction to and commentary on the fiction, poetry, and drama of one of the twentieth century's most versatile writers and the first author to be honored as U.S. poet laureate. Grimshaw examines the writer's views about the primacy of self-knowledge and explores not only the painful and arduous path his protagonists must follow to gain such knowledge but also the interrelationship of his artistic endeavors, which were woven together by common thematic concerns -- history, time, truth, responsibility, love, hope, and...

"Understanding May Sarton" introduces readers to the poetry, fiction, and memoirs of a pioneering feminist whose works, acclaimed but underappreciated during her lifetime, have attracted an expanding readership since her death in 1995. With the inclusion of Sarton's final novel, The Education of Harriet Hatfield, her final volume of poetry, Coming into Eighty, and her three final volumes of nonfiction, Mark K. Fulk provides a comprehensive study without limiting Sarton's literary accomplishments to the categories of feminist and lesbian writing, as other critics have done.

Fulk traces the...

Widely known as Broadway's king of comedy, Neil Simon has written such popular and critical successes as Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lost in Yonkers. In this guide to his work, Susan Koprince provides an overview of Simon's career and in-depth analyses of his major plays. Koprince suggests that, in addition to -- or in spite of -- his unmatched commercial success as a writer of comedy, Simon qualifies as a master dramatist of twentieth-century theatre.

Koprince recounts Simon's emergence from humble Jewish American origins to...

A strong case for Stone as an articulate and passionate moralist; In this guide to the fiction of Robert Stone, Gregory Stephenson introduces readers to a novelist of popular appeal and critical acclaim whom he describes as an anomaly among contemporary American writers - an author independent of literary fashions, unaffiliated with groups or movements. In this critical survey, Stephenson identifies the qualities that separate Stone from his peers and have brought him accolades such as the National Book Award, earning him a place of enduring significance in the American canon. Stephenson...

An ambitious novelist made clear and accessible; William H. Gass writes in his essays about the world within the word and the soul inside the sentence, yet readers often find it difficult to get far enough into Gass's words and sentences to find the world or soul they contain. In this guide to the American writer and philosopher's novels, short stories, novellas, and essays, H. L. Hix clarifies the obscurities that have served to limit access to Gass's corpus and explores how the parallels between his fiction and nonfiction illumine their related themes. Hix offers readings of Gass's works,...

This text takes on the work of Robert Coover, a major figure of postmodern metafiction. In an analysis of Coover's short stories and novels, it demonstrates how Coover writes in several different modes that cross over into one another.

Understanding Charles Johnson offers a critical introduction to the fiction of one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary writers and the first African American male since Ralph Ellison to win the National Book Award, which Johnson received in 1990 for Middle Passage. In addition to providing a biographical sketch, Gary Storhoff analyzes Johnson's four novels and two volumes of short stories. Describing his body of work as unique in American fiction, Storhoff explains how philosophical and religious orientations differentiate Johnson's writings and challenge his readers. Storhoff explores...

Understanding Nelson Algren traces the career of a writer best known for his novels The Man with the Golden Arm and A Walk on the Wild Side. From Algren's first short stories through his final fiction, the posthumously published The Devil's Stocking, Brooke Horvath surveys the literary contributions of a writer known as the voice of America's dispossessed. Horvath offers an introduction to the life and work of the Chicagoan who wrote about the underclass in the Windy City and beyond, bringing to the fore their humanity and aspirations. He proposes that while it is appropriate to view Algren's...

In this critical study of Adrienne Kennedy, Philip C. Kolin explores the interrelationship of life and work of one of the most respected African American playwrights. For more than four decades Kennedy's theater has raised profound issues about race, gender, selfhood, and performativity in American culture - topics that Kolin explores throughout his reading of Kennedy's career. Making her challenging canon more accessible, Kolin offers in-depth analyses of her plays, political scripts, short fiction, and experimental autobiography, as well as examines her neglected novel, Deadly Triplets, and...

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,...