Author : William O'Rourke
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780791416822
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (168 download)
Book Synopsis Signs of the Literary Times by : William O'Rourke
Download or read book Signs of the Literary Times written by William O'Rourke and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1993-11-18 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is O'Rourkes first volume of nonfiction since his 1972 The Harrisburg 7 and the New Catholic Left, which Garry Wills hailed as "a clinical x-ray of our society's condition." That book prompted Herbert Mitgang to name O'Rourke "one of the finest writers of his generation." Signs of the Literary Times provides new evidence for that assessment. It brings together ORourkes unique mixture of literary, political, and cultural criticism published periodically during the last twenty-two years. The collection ranges from autobiographical essays describing his generations literary evolution, to articles on free speech issues, such as nude dancing and the Bush-era NEA controversies, as well as book reviews that provide a fresh and largely uncharted critical map of the period. ORourke is not only interested in genre bending and expansion, but in persevering during this age of academic specialization as, in his phrase, a person of letters. In the two decades between his first work of nonfiction and this volume, ORourke has published three highly acclaimed novels, The Meekness of Isaac (1974), Idle Hands (1981), and Criminal Tendencies (1987). Of the last, The Virginia Quarterly Review wrote, Of all the novelists paraded in recent years by publishers as natural successors to Graham Greene, this one comes the closest. A thoroughly entertaining literary event. Signs of the Literary Times is not so much a compendium of diverse pieces on various subjects, as it is a cogent and continuing x-ray of our society's condition.