Erskine Caldwell and the fiction of poverty : the flesh and the spirit / Sylvia Jenkins Cook.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cook, Sylvia Jenkins, 1943-

Series:

Southern literary studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Caldwell, Erskine, 1903-1987--Criticism and interpretation.

Caldwell, Erskine.

Caldwell, Erskine, 1903-1987.

Criticism and interpretation.

Southern States--In literature.

Southern States.

Poverty in literature.

Poor in literature.

Physical Description:

xiv, 301 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [1991]

Summary:

This study of Erskine Caldwell is the first comprehensive investigation of all the novels, short stories, and nonfiction of this intriguing southern writer. Once considered in France to be one of the 'big five, ' along with Faulkner, Dos Passos, Hemingway, and Steinbeck, Caldwell was praised and honored throughout Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan during the first half of this century. But in his native land, and especially in his native South, he was more often an object of embarrassment, controversy, and, ultimately, neglect. Sylvia Jenkins Cook considers the sources of Caldwell's fame and disrepute by examining his simultaneous attraction to what was most ludicrous, vulgar, and irrational in human nature and what was most cruel and unjust in human society.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0807116459

0807116939

OCLC:

23015161