By Nava Atlas | On July 9, 2023 | Updated July 16, 2023 | Comments (0)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) by Carson McCullers suffered a fate common to sophomore efforts that follow hugely successful first novels. Just twenty-three when her first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, came out the year before (1940), it established her as a literary wunderkind.
Reflections in a Golden Eye, conversely, received mostly poor reviews, critics unsure of what to make of the young author’s use of the literary device termed “the grotesque” in fiction — a hallmark of fellow Southern author Flannery O’Connor and others.
McCullers’ work was primarily associated with the genre of Southern Gothic, which the Oxford Research Encyclopedia defines as follows: “Characteristics of Southern Gothic include the presence of irrational, horrific, and transgressive thoughts, desires, and impulses; grotesque characters; dark humor, and an overall angst-ridden sense of alienation.”
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By Nava Atlas | On June 13, 2023 | Comments (0)
Seraph on the Suwanee, Zora Neale Hurston’s fourth and last published novel (1948), was an outlier among her works, which included numerous short stories and ethnographic collections. The reason: it was her only book that was written about white people — specifically, Florida’s “white crackers.”
Exploring the cultural differences between the meek and colorless heroine, Arvay and her handsome, enterprising husband Jim, the novel received mixed-to-positive reviews by the white press.
Some reviewers bent over backwards to praise the fact that a Black writer produced a novel that wasn’t about race issues, bringing to light the lives and dialect of the turpentine people of Florida. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On June 10, 2023 | Updated July 16, 2023 | Comments (0)
Of the six novel Shirley Jackson (1916 – 1965) completed in her lifetime, The Bird’s Nest (1954) is one of the lesser known and read, compared with the 1948 short story, “The Lottery,” or her late novels, The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962).
Yet like all of Jackson’s works, this one is deserving of reconsideration. Though just forty-eight when she died, she left behind a large body of fiction and nonfiction works that have influenced generations of writers who came after her.
Elizabeth Richmond, the novel’s main character, has multiple personality disorder. As her psyche splinters, she harbors Bess, Beth, and Betsy. You’ll find a thorough plot summary here. Read More→
Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery is the third installment of the beloved series that follows Anne Shirley from her orphaned childhood through her years as college student, teacher, wife, and mother.
Anne of Green Gables, the first of this series by the beloved Canadian author, was published in 1908, was quickly followed by Anne of Avonlea in 1909.
Readers must have been eagerly awaiting more of Anne’s adventures, as, with a gap of six years, Anne of the Island didn’t appear until 1915 (though she did play a small role in Chronicles of Avonlea, 1912). Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On May 24, 2023 | Updated July 16, 2023 | Comments (0)
Scottish-born Dame Muriel Spark (1918 – 2006) was a prolific novelist, short story writer, poet, and biographer. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) would become her best-known and most enduring work. Here are two opposing reviews of the novel from when it was first published.
The tale of a middle-aged Edinburgh schoolteacher was immortalized in the 1969 film starring a young Maggie Smith, now is considered a cinematic classic. It was also adapted as a Broadway play.
When the slim novel first came out, it received generally excellent reviews, but they weren’t universal, as you’ll see in the somewhat dour review that ran in the London Observer. Read More→
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