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Before the 1970s, there were only a few acclaimed biographical novels. But starting in the 1980s, there was a veritable explosion of this genre of fiction, leading to the publication of spectacular biographical novels about figures as varied as Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, and Marilyn Monroe, just to mention a notable few. This publication frenzy culminated in 1999 when two biographical novels (Michael Cunningham's The Hours and Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Cunningham's novel won the award. In The American Biographical Novel, Michael Lackey charts the shifts in intellectual history that made the biographical novel acceptable to the literary establishment and popular with the general reading public. More specifically, Lackey clarifies the origin and evolution of this genre of fiction, specifies the kind of 'truth' it communicates, provides a framework for identifying how this genre uniquely engages the political, and demonstrates how it gives readers new access to history.

Biographical fiction, American --- Literature and history --- Literature and society --- History and criticism

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Voices from the borderlands push against boundaries in more ways than one, as Donna M. Kabalen de Bichara ably demonstrates in this investigation into the twentieth-century autobiographical writing of four women of Mexican origin who lived in the American Southwest. Until recently, little attention has been paid to the writing of the women included in this study. As Kabalen de Bichara notes, it is precisely such historical exclusion of texts written by Mexican American women that gives particular significance to the reexamination of the five autobiographical works that provide the focus for this in-depth study.?Early Life and Education? and Dew on the Thorn by Jovita González (1904?83), deal with life experiences in Texas and were likely written between 1926 and the 1940s; both texts were published in 1997. Romance of a Little Village Girl, first published in 1955, focuses on life in New Mexico, and was written by Cleofas Jaramillo (1878?1956) when the author was in her seventies. A Beautiful, Cruel Country, by Eva Antonio Wilbur-Cruce (1904?98), introduces the reader to history and a way of life that developed in the cultural space of Arizona. Created over a ten-year period, this text was published in 1987, just eleven years before the author?s death. Hoyt Street, by Mary Helen Ponce (b. 1938), began as a research paper during the period of the autobiographer?s undergraduate studies (1974?80), and was published in its present form in 1993. These border autobiographies can be understood as attempts on the part of the Mexican American female autobiographers to put themselves into the text and thus write their experiences into existence.--Amazon.com.

American fiction --- American prose literature --- Autobiography --- Biographical fiction, American --- Biographical fiction, American. --- Group identity in literature. --- Mexican American women authors --- Mexican American women in literature. --- Self in literature. --- Mexican American authors --- History and criticism. --- Mexican American authors. --- Women authors --- Women authors. --- History and criticism --- Biography --- Jaramillo, Cleofas M. --- Mireles, Jovita González, --- Ponce, Mary Helen. --- Wilbur-Cruce, Eva Antonia. --- Southwest, New.

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Biographical fiction, American --- Transcendence (Philosophy) in literature. --- Immanence (Philosophy) in literature. --- Phenomenology and literature. --- Scientists in literature. --- Pynchon, Thomas. - Mason & Dixon. --- Mason, Charles, - 1728-1786 --- Dixon, Jeremiah --- Pynchon, Thomas

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Thomas Pynchon's 1997 novel 'Mason & Dixon' marked a deep shift in Pynchon's career and in American letters in general. All of Pynchon's novels had been socially and politically aware, marked by social criticism and a profound questioning of American values. They have carried the labels of satire and black humor, and 'Pynchonesque' has come to be associated with erudition, a playful style, anachronisms and puns - and an interest in scientific theories, popular culture, paranoia, and the 'military-industrial complex.' In short, Pynchon's novels were the sine qua non of postmodernism; 'Mason & Dixon' went further, using the same style, wit, and erudition to re-create an 18th century when 'America' was being formed as both place and idea. Pynchon's focus on the creation of the Mason-Dixon Line and the governmental and scientific entities responsible for it makes a clearer statement than any of his previous novels about the slavery and imperialism at the heart of the Enlightenment, as he levels a dark and hilarious critique at this America. This volume of new essays studies the interface between 18th- and 20th-century culture both in Pynchon's novel and in the historical past. It offers fresh thinking about Pynchon's work, as the contributors take up the linkages between the 18th and 20th centuries in studies that are as concerned with culture as with the literary text itself. Contributors: Mitchum Huehls, Brian Thill, Colin Clarke, Pedro Garcia-Caro, Dennis Lensing, Justin M. Scott Coe, Ian Copestake, Frank Palmeri. Elizabeth Jane Wall Hinds is Professor and Chair of the English Department at SUNY Brockport.

Frontier and pioneer life in literature --- Landontginners en pioniersleven in de literatuur --- Scientists in literature --- Vie des défricheurs et des pionniers dans la littérature --- Pynchon, Thomas --- Postmodernism (Literature) --- United States --- Literature and history --- Biographical fiction [American ] --- History and criticism --- Mason, Charles --- In literature --- Dixon, Jeremiah --- Biographical fiction, American --- Frontier and pioneer life in literature. --- Scientists in literature. --- History and criticism. --- Pynchon, Thomas. --- Mason, Charles, --- In literature. --- American biographical fiction --- American fiction --- 18th Century. --- America. --- Culture. --- Enlightenment Critique. --- Enlightenment. --- Imperialism. --- Literary Text. --- Mason & Dixon. --- Pynchon. --- Slavery.