The Pilgrim Hawk: A Love Story is a favorite so far among my students in the "Forgotten Books" class I'm teaching this semester. It is set in the South of France in the late 1920s but was written in 1940, long after its author, Glenway Wescott, had left France. My students and I all agreed that it is a beautiful, unjustly forgotten book.…
Last week in my “Forgotten Books” class we read some stories from Kay Boyle’s The White Horses of Vienna and Other Stories. The title story dominated our discussion. (See the end for where to find "The White Horses of Vienna.") It was published in Harper’s magazine in 1935 and won the O. Henry Award for best story that year. Today it’s a rather…
I had one of those "A-ha" moments in my "Literature of War" class this week (and I don't mean the band). Light bulbs were going off---for me anyway. We've been talking a lot about the stories and histories that have been forgotten or suppressed. This week it started with no one in the class knowing the work of Katherine Anne Porter. That happens…
This week's readings on the experience of the Civil War for African-Americans sparked a lengthy discussion of America's suppressed histories. We read Susie King Taylor's Reminiscences of My Life in Camp, published in 1902, as well as speeches by Frederick Douglass, and a story published in 1864 in Harper's Weekly, “Tippo Saib." We also read two critical articles, one of which explained the long…
Here, finally, is my list of female Bildugsromane to read this year as part of the Classics Club's Women's Classic Literature Event 2016. I have only read the first before, and I'm reading the rest as part of my research for a chapter in the book I am writing, tentatively titled Reading Little Women: The History of an American Classic. Many of these are books…
It's been an amazing year in my writing, teaching, and reading lives, and I can't wait for 2016. In fact, for a while now, I've been writing 2016 when I write down the date. That's how much I'm looking forward to it. But first, a look back at 2015. I have been busy completing two books as well as writing four online pieces and…
The folks over at The Classics Club recommend beginning the Women's Classic Event (I sort like the idea of calling it a "Challenge") by answering some questions about yourself. So here goes . . . Introduce yourself. Tell us what you are most looking forward to in this event. I teach American literature at the university level and my research interests are particularly…