A Sourcebook of American Literary Journalism: Representative Writers in an Emerging Genre [Hardcover]

Thomas B. Connery (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0313265941 | ISBN-13: 978-0313265945

A wide range of writers are brought together for the first time in this discussion of an on-going, largely unrecognized American prose tradition: literary journalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such writing was not new journalism and therefore simply a type of journalism; nor was it factual fiction, merely a type of realistic fiction. Rather, it can be examined as a distinct literary form, a type of cultural expression that can be defined and characterized.

Thirty-five lively and literate essays by contributing scholars analyze major writers of this literary genre or writers known for a major work in the genre, and Thomas B. Connery provides short pieces for nineteen additional figures. The volume introduction discusses definitions and characteristics of literary journalism, with reference to the patterns of reality depicted, and identifies two main types: works characterized by immersion and shorter, more impressionistic pieces. The roots of this new journalism are traced, and ideas of the theorists of this genre are explicated. Connery also provides the results of his research and uncovers the primary sources of literary journalism.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The many interpretations of literary journalism are explored in this reference's detailed introduction, but it is best described as, "nonfiction printed prose whose verifiable content is shaped and transformed into a story or sketch by use of narrative and rhetorical techniques generally associated with fiction." Contributing scholars have written lengthy critical essays on 35 writers, including Stephen Crane, Dorothy Day, John Hersey, Joan Didion, John McPhee, and these are arranged chronologically from Mark Twain to Tracy Kidder. Editor Connery writes that this should "provide a place to begin additional investigations . . . from a variety of critical approaches." Certainly it does that and is appropriate for all journalism and literature collections. A bonus is that many of the artfully crafted essays reflect the style and substance attributed to the best of literary journalism.
- Jo Cates, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, Ill.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

?Literary criticism occupies a precarious position in reference collections. When emulsified with biography, as in Gale's Dictionary of Literary Biography (Detroit: Gale 1978--), it is welcome; when it stands alone, it is usually banished to the stacks. This latter fate, therefore, awaits the thirty-five insightful critical essays that analyze the work of literary journalists from Mark Twain through Tracy Kidder. "Literary Journalism" departs from textbook journalism by incorporating the narrative techniques of realistic fiction. The thirty-five subjects, among them Lincoln Steffens, Dorothy Day, John Hersey, Truman Capote, and Bob Greene, stand as exemplars of the art of literary journalism during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the U.S. The lengthy signed essays by academics include biographical information incidentally rather than by formula or design; their purpose, achieved throughout, is to explain how each writer has amplified literary journalism. Primary and secondary bibliographies enrich each essay. Half of the writers are covered in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, but not always with the same attention to their journalistic endeavors--reason enough to place this in academic reference collections rather than the stacks.?-Wilson Library Bulletin

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Greenwood (January 30, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0313265941
• ISBN-13: 978-0313265945
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,065,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)