Teenager Samantha Hughes of Hopewell, KY, is pretty, headstrong, and curious. About the father she never knew, and about the war that took him away. The war nobody wants to remember.

"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 small-town life in contemporary western Kentucky and the consumer culture that has replaced the agrarian values of previous generations. In this comprehensive analysis, Joanna Price offers an introduction to Mason's nonfiction prose, short stories, and novels, and sheds light on the writer's distinctive style and thematic concerns."--Jacket.

"Focusing on the ethics of autobiography, this volume analyzes the works of four writers who spent much of their youth in working-class circumstances yet became highly educated intellectual professionals. It examines the way in which they confront their working-class past. In addition to representing different times, each work recounts the author's struggle with a particular societal element"--Provided by publisher.

"Throughout human history, motherhood and maternal experience have been largely defined and written by patriarchal culture. Religion, art, medicine, psychoanalysis, and other bastions of male power have objectified the maternal and have disregarded female subjectivity. As a result, maternal perspectives have been ignored and the mother's voice silenced. In recent literary texts, however, more substantial attention has been given to motherhood and to the physical, psychological, social, and cultural dynamics affecting maternal experience. In Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith, Paula Gallant Eckard examines how maternal experience is depicted in selected novels by three American writers, emphasizing how they focus on the body and the voice of the mother."--Jacket.

Presents vital information on the most-studied short stories at the high school and early-college levels. Each entry contains author biography, plot summary, characters, themes, style, historical context, critical overview, and criticism.

Each volume provides discussions of the literary and historical background of novels from various cultures and time periods. Includes concise synopses of plot, characters and themes, a brief author biography, discussion of the story's cultural and historical significance, and excerpted criticism.

Presents vital information on the most-studied short stories at the high school and early-college levels. Each entry contains author biography, plot summary, characters, themes, style, historical context, critical overview, and criticism.

Presents vital information on the most-studied short stories at the high school and early-college levels. Each entry contains author biography, plot summary, characters, themes, style, historical context, critical overview, and criticism.