Understanding Stewart O'Nan

Heike Paul

ISBN 10: 1643361503 / ISBN 13: 9781643361505

Published by MP-SCA Uni of South Carolina, 2020

New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # FW-9781643361505

Synopsis:

This first book-length study of Stewart O'Nan's work offers a comprehensive introduction to his writings and carefully examines recurring thematic concerns and stylistic characteristics of his novels. The author of eighteen novels, several works of nonfiction, and two short-story collections, O'Nan received the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society's Gold Medal for best novel for Snow Angels and the Drew Heinz Prize for In the Walled City. In 1996 Granta magazine named him one of the Twenty Best Young American Novelists.

In Understanding Stewart O'Nan, Heike Paul appraises O'Nan's oeuvre to date, including his popular multigenerational trilogy of novels--Wish You Were Here; Emily, Alone; and Henry, Himself--that received enthusiastic reviews in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Publisher's Weekly, and the Guardian.

Paul argues that O'Nan is not only a writer of popular fiction but also has developed into a major literary voice worthy of canonical status and of having a firm place in school, college, and university curricula. To this end Paul analyzes his use of formulas of long-standing popular American genres, such as the Western and the gothic tale, as he re-invents them in innovative and complex ways creating a style that Paul describes as ""everyday gothic."" She also offers a critical examination of O'Nan's treatment of American myths and vivid descriptions of struggling middle class settings and individuals who lead precarious lives. Paul believes this first critical study of O'Nan's collected works will be instrumental in building a critical archive and analysis of his oeuvre.

About the Author: Heike Paul is chair of American studies at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nurnberg and director of the Bavarian American Academy in Munich. She is the author of The Myths That Made America and the editor and co-editor of numerous books on literature, popular culture, and political culture. In 2018 she received the prestigious Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Understanding Stewart O'Nan
Publisher: MP-SCA Uni of South Carolina
Publication Date: 2020
Binding: PAP
Condition: New