Being a Minor Writer [Paperback]

Gail Gilliland (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Amid the current controversy over canon and "great books" is a corollary debate about the role and identity of "minor" literature. Focusing on the ethical responsibilities of the author, Gilliland, herself a poet and writer of short stories, argues that the distinction between major and minor dissolves on a moral level. For her, minor genres (short stories instead of novels), minor actions (the everyday instead of adventure), and minor subjects (motherhood instead of the heroic) represent important values. Never satisfactorily demonstrating the polarities that define what is minor, however, Gilliland spends much of the book in a demonstration of the obvious. While she drops many names, her analysis is often facile and historically superficial. Thus, while well written, this book is ultimately disappointing.
T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“What drives the work of 'minor' writers like herself (and the rest of us), those who have little hope of becoming 'authors' in the Foucauldian [cultural discourse-shifting] sense? Her response comes in a series of strikingly well-crafted essays, at once erudite and personal, that look into reasons for writing other than influence or acclaim.”—College Composition and Communication

“[Author Gail Gilliland] discusses major issues in this examination of the role of the lesser-known writer in today's society. Being a Minor Writer will interest anyone who has ever struggled with that 'raid on the inarticulate' called writing…Learned, impassioned, filled with high moral purpose.”—Wilson Library Bulletin

Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press; 1 edition (September 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877454868
• ISBN-13: 978-0877454861
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 4.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,095,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The experience of being a minor writer., May 3, 2002

By 

Stephen (Derwood, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Being a Minor Writer (Paperback)

Gilliland gives an excellent commentary on the experience of being a minor writer. Basically, she does two things. First, she enumerates what she doesn't like in the prevailing ethos of literary criticism. True, the assumption the reader is likely to make is that the author feels that the bad tendencies of the arbiters of what constitutes major writing are in some sense responsible for her being minor. However, most of those tendencies are connected by her to these arbiters either being famous powerful writers or pandering to such, so in fact her theoretical discussion of literary criticism is inescapably relevant to the question of what it means to be a minor writer, even if it also largely answers, to be more blunt and impolite than Gilliland, why literary critics can be immoral idiots. To greatly simplify, and at the risk of putting words in her mouth, famous non-minor writers tend (at least in comparison with the minor writers who are their competition) to be jet-set powerful males whose money and power enable them to live a life full of gain and remarkable out-of-the-way experiences that are in their self-interest (and the self-interest of currying critics) to glorify, and so notwithstanding that writings about ordinary, minor life are most worthy, such writings get little if any of the acclaim they deserve. She also bravely argues for moral purpose in writing, which she distinguishes from puritanical excess. In her criticisms, Gilliland is very polite, being careful to be respectful, and not letting anger influence her arguments much. The second thing she does is to illustrate her experience as a minor writer by introducing numerous anecdotes illustrating various themes of that experience. These stories and her skill at using them to illustrate her points make for the most interesting part of the book; Gilliland is a great short-story writer and in talking about herself less needs to feel the need to frame matters obliquely or in terms of technical language (portions of the book were apparently presented as papers at academic conferences). However, the dance she does (especially in the beginning of the book) in order to avoid giving offense to the academic literary criticism establishment, though it does make the book somewhat longer and more difficult than ideal, is mostly rather amusing in the skillfulness of its execution. And the book is intelligent like a good book should be.