Linda Wagner-Martin

This book aims to both describe and analyze the way Steinbeck learned the writing craft. It begins with his immersion in the short story, some years after he stopped attending Stanford University. Aside from a weak first novel, his professional writing career began with the publication in 1932 of The Pastures of Heaven, stories set in the Salinas Valley and dedicated to his parents. From that book he wrote truly commanding stories such as The Red Pony. Intermixed with Steinbeck’s journalism about California’s labor difficulties, his writing skill led to his 1930 masterpieces, Of Mice and Men, In Dubious Battle, and The Grapes of Wrath. The latter novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1940, led eventually to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He continued producing such wide-ranging works as The Pearl, East of Eden, The Winter of Our Discontent, and Travels with Charley up to just a few months before his death in 1968.

A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 1950 TO THE PRESENT Featuring works from notable authors as varied as Salinger and the Beats to Vonnegut, Capote, Morrison, Rich, Walker, Eggers, and DeLillo, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present offers a comprehensive analysis of the wide range of literary works produced in the United States over the last six decades and a fascinating survey of the dramatic changes during America’s transition from the innocence of the fifties to the harsh realities of the first decade of the new millennium. Author Linda Wagner-Martin - a highly acclaimed authority on all facets of modern American literature - covers major works of drama, poetry, fiction, non- fiction, memoirs, and popular genres such as science fiction and detective novels. Viewing works produced during this fertile literary period from a wide-ranging perspective, Wagner-Martin considers literature in relation to such issues as the politics of civil rights, feminism, sexual preferences, and race- and gender-based marketing. She also places a special emphasis on works produced during the twenty-first century, and writings influenced by recent historic events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the global financial crisis. With its careful balance of scholarly precision and accessibility, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present provides readers of all levels with rich and revealing insights into the diversity of literary forms and influences that characterize postmodern America. “A monumental distillation of an enormous range of material, Wagner-Martin’s rich book should be required reading for anyone grappling with making sense of the prolific, broad-spectrum, and diverse writing in the US since 1950.”Thadious M. Davis, University of Pennsylvania “Linda Wagner-Martin’s history impressively and judiciously surveys all fields of American writing over the past sixty years, taking full account of significant cultural and historical contexts and the major critical commentaries that have helped shape our understanding of developments in the second half of the last century and the dozen years following the millennium. Balanced, informative, and always highly readable there is much here for general readers, students, and specialists alike.”Christopher MacGowan, the College of William and Mary

Provides information on Ernest Hemingway's life and accomplishments, and thoroughly examines the popular "Farewell to Arms," offering a plot summary, themes, character analysis, and reception and criticism of the novel.

A reading of the oeuvre of Toni Morrison—fiction, non-fiction, and other—drawing extensively from her many interviews as well as her primary texts, Toni Morrison: A Literary Life, second edition provides an overview of Morrison’s intellectual growth as an artist. Linda Wagner-Martin aligns Morrison's novels with the works of Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, assessing her works as among the most innovative, and most significant, worldwide, of the past fifty plus years. The revised edition includes new discussion of God Help the Child, The Origin of Others, and The Source of Self-Regard. These additions present and intensify scholarship on Morrison’s major literary contributions, but also trace her significant role as a public intellectual, bringing to light the consistency of Morrison’s aesthetic and political visions.

Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Life includes new research on the best-known of the posthumous publications: A Moveable Feast, 1964 (and the 2009 A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition); Islands in the Stream, 1970; and The Garden of Eden, 1986. Linda Wagner-Martin provides background and intertextual readings—particularly of the way Hemingway’s unpublished stories (“Phillip Haines was a writer”) and his fiction from Men Without Women and Winner Take Nothing interface with the memoir. The revised edition also highlights and provides background on Hemingway’s treatment of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, his life in Paris in the 1920s, and his connection to the poetry scene there—putting this in conversation with Mary Hemingway’s edits of A Moveable Feast. The new chapters also illuminate the reception of Islands in the Stream and a new way of understanding the role of gender and androgyny in The Garden of Eden. On a whole, the book draws from extensive archival research, particularly correspondence of all four of Hemingway’s wives.

Walt Whitman: A Literary Life highlights two major influences on Whitman’s poetry and life: the American Civil War and his economic condition. Linda Wagner-Martin performs a close reading of many of Whitman’s poems, particularly his Civil War work (in Drum-Taps) and those poems written during the last twenty years of his life. Wagner-Martin’s study also emphasizes the near-poverty that Whitman experienced. Starting with his early career as a printer and journalist, the book moves to the publication of Leaves of Grass, and his cultivation of the persona of the “working-class” writer. In addition to establishing Whitman’s attention to the Civil War through journalism and memoirs, the book takes the approach of following Whitman’s life through his poems. Utilizing contemporary perspectives on class, Wagner-Martin provides a new reading of Whitman’s economic situation. This is an accessibly written synthesis of Whitman’s publication history bringing attention to under-studied aspects of his writing.

THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR MAYA ANGELOU DISCOVER THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF MAYA ANGELOU WITH A HIGHLY PERSONAL AND DETAILED ACCOUNT OF HER CHALLENGES AND TRIUMPHS The Life of the Author: Maya Angelou delivers an engaging and thorough retelling of the life and work of the celebrated and accomplished writer, director, and essayist. The book offers readers an engrossing retelling of Maya Angelou's entire life, from her time as a child in the segregated town of Stamps, Arkansas, to her death in 2014 in Winston-Salem. Written with an emphasis on accessibility, the author avoids critical theory and focuses on Maya Angelou's growth as a person and writer as well as the ways in which her life influenced her work. This new biography tells the story of a young black woman who overcomes poverty and endemic structural and personal obstacles to lead an accomplished life. Readers will also enjoy: A thorough retelling of the time Maya Angelou spent in Africa and how it shaped her views and workAn exploration of the screenplays written by Maya AngelouDiscussions of Maya Angelou's early life as a dancer, singer, and writerAccounts of Maya Angelou's writing and production of television showsA fulsome treatment of Maya Angelou's work, including her poems, autobiographies, films, music, and theatre Perfect for undergraduate students in Contemporary Literature courses as well as general readers who love Maya Angelou and her work, The Life of the Author: Maya Angelou will also earn a place in the libraries of biography and literature enthusiasts who seek to improve their understanding of the life and story of Maya Angelou with a highly personal and accessible new book.

A revised and updated edition of a comprehensive biographical and critical reading of the works of American poet and memoirist Maya Angelou (1928-2014). Linda Wagner-Martin covers all six of Angelou’s autobiographies, as well as her essay and poetry collections, whilst also exploring Angelou’s life as an African American in the United States, her career as stage and film performer, her thoughtful participation in the Civil Rights actions of the 1960s, and her travels abroad in Egypt, Africa, and Europe. In her discussion of Angelou’s methods of writing her stunning autobiography, which began with the 1970 publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Wagner-Martin writes about the influences of the Harlem Writers Group (led by James Baldwin, Paule Marshall, and John O. Killens) as well as Angelou’s significant friendships with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders from both international and African American United States cultures. Crucial concepts throughout include the role of oral traditions, of song and dance, of the spiritualism of art based on religious belief, of Angelou’s voiced rhythms and her polished use of dialogue to convey more abstract “meaning.” Wagner-Martin shows that, viewing herself as a global citizen, Angelou never lost her spirit of adventure and discovery as well as her ability to overcome.Named an Outstanding Academic Title of the Year by Choice in 2015, this new edition includes two new chapters on Angelou's connections to Africa and on her final years.

A revised and updated edition of a comprehensive biographical and critical reading of the works of American poet and memoirist Maya Angelou (1928-2014). Linda Wagner-Martin covers all six of Angelou’s autobiographies, as well as her essay and poetry collections, whilst also exploring Angelou’s life as an African American in the United States, her career as stage and film performer, her thoughtful participation in the Civil Rights actions of the 1960s, and her travels abroad in Egypt, Africa, and Europe. In her discussion of Angelou’s methods of writing her stunning autobiography, which began with the 1970 publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Wagner-Martin writes about the influences of the Harlem Writers Group (led by James Baldwin, Paule Marshall, and John O. Killens) as well as Angelou’s significant friendships with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders from both international and African American United States cultures. Crucial concepts throughout include the role of oral traditions, of song and dance, of the spiritualism of art based on religious belief, of Angelou’s voiced rhythms and her polished use of dialogue to convey more abstract “meaning.” Wagner-Martin shows that, viewing herself as a global citizen, Angelou never lost her spirit of adventure and discovery as well as her ability to overcome.Named an Outstanding Academic Title of the Year by Choice in 2015, this new edition includes two new chapters on Angelou's connections to Africa and on her final years.

In this revised edition, Linda Wagner-Martin offers a compelling study of African American writer Toni Morrison’s work, beginning with The Bluest Eye in 1970 and continuing through her 2015 novel God Help the Child. Wagner-Martin describes Morrison as an inherently original novelist who was shaped throughout her career by her role within families. Her study focuses on Morrison's use of family in her narratives, particularly on the roles of mother and child. Beginning with the paradigm of a good mother (Mrs. MacTeer) in The Bluest Eye, set against women who are found wanting in their mother roles, Morrison concentrates in various ways on emphasizing these mother characters. Sometimes those roles are peripheral; more often, they are central. In Sula, for example, the title character has no interest in mothering, but she shows herself to be the product of family disinterest; in Song of Solomon Morrison creates what she terms an ancestor figure to give guidance to the young; in Tar Baby Marie Therese continues that role. Beloved tackles many dimensions of a mothers role. As Morrison continues to write her varied and powerful novels, from Jazz and Paradise through Love, A Mercy, and Home, the attention to judging the efficacy of mothering grows. Finally, in God Help the Child, she attends to little else. In Morrison’s fictional world, drawing from the human and spiritual forces in both Africa and the United States provides some hope of a truly satisfying existence.

The Routledge Introduction to American Postmodernism offers readers a fresh, insightful overview to all genres of postmodern writing. Drawing on a variety of works from not only mainstream authors but also those that are arguably unconventional, renowned scholar Linda Wagner-Martin gives the reader a solid framework and foundation to reading, understanding, and appreciating postmodern literature since its inception through the present day.

The Routledge Introduction to American Postmodernism offers readers a fresh, insightful overview to all genres of postmodern writing. Drawing on a variety of works from not only mainstream authors but also those that are arguably unconventional, renowned scholar Linda Wagner-Martin gives the reader a solid framework and foundation to reading, understanding, and appreciating postmodern literature since its inception through the present day.

This is a study of the ways various kinds of injury and trauma affected Ernest Hemingway’s life and writing, from the First World War through his suicide in 1961.

The modernist period was crucial for American literature as it gave writers the chance to be truly innovative and create their own distinct identity. Starting slightly earlier than many guides to modernism this lucid and comprehensive guide introduces the reader to the essential history of the period including technology, religion, economy, class, gender and immigration. These contexts are woven of into discussions of many significant authors and texts from the period. Wagner-Martin brings her years of writing about American modernism to explicate poetry and drama as well as fiction and life-writing. Among the authors emphasized are Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, John Dos Passos, William Carlos Williams, Mike Gold, James T. Farrell, Clifford Odets, John Steinbeck and countless others.A clear and engaging introduction to an exciting period of literature, this is the ultimate guide for those seeking an overview of American Modernism.

The modernist period was crucial for American literature as it gave writers the chance to be truly innovative and create their own distinct identity. Starting slightly earlier than many guides to modernism this lucid and comprehensive guide introduces the reader to the essential history of the period including technology, religion, economy, class, gender and immigration. These contexts are woven of into discussions of many significant authors and texts from the period. Wagner-Martin brings her years of writing about American modernism to explicate poetry and drama as well as fiction and life-writing. Among the authors emphasized are Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, John Dos Passos, William Carlos Williams, Mike Gold, James T. Farrell, Clifford Odets, John Steinbeck and countless others.A clear and engaging introduction to an exciting period of literature, this is the ultimate guide for those seeking an overview of American Modernism.

A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 1950 TO THE PRESENT Featuring works from notable authors as varied as Salinger and the Beats to Vonnegut, Capote, Morrison, Rich, Walker, Eggers, and DeLillo, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present offers a comprehensive analysis of the wide range of literary works produced in the United States over the last six decades and a fascinating survey of the dramatic changes during America’s transition from the innocence of the fifties to the harsh realities of the first decade of the new millennium. Author Linda Wagner-Martin - a highly acclaimed authority on all facets of modern American literature - covers major works of drama, poetry, fiction, non- fiction, memoirs, and popular genres such as science fiction and detective novels. Viewing works produced during this fertile literary period from a wide-ranging perspective, Wagner-Martin considers literature in relation to such issues as the politics of civil rights, feminism, sexual preferences, and race- and gender-based marketing. She also places a special emphasis on works produced during the twenty-first century, and writings influenced by recent historic events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the global financial crisis. With its careful balance of scholarly precision and accessibility, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present provides readers of all levels with rich and revealing insights into the diversity of literary forms and influences that characterize postmodern America. “A monumental distillation of an enormous range of material, Wagner-Martin’s rich book should be required reading for anyone grappling with making sense of the prolific, broad-spectrum, and diverse writing in the US since 1950.”Thadious M. Davis, University of Pennsylvania “Linda Wagner-Martin’s history impressively and judiciously surveys all fields of American writing over the past sixty years, taking full account of significant cultural and historical contexts and the major critical commentaries that have helped shape our understanding of developments in the second half of the last century and the dozen years following the millennium. Balanced, informative, and always highly readable there is much here for general readers, students, and specialists alike.”Christopher MacGowan, the College of William and Mary

Linda Wagner-Martin's Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is a twenty-first century story. Using cultural and gender studies as contexts, Wagner-Martin brings new information to the story of the Alabama judge's daughter who, at seventeen, met her husband-to-be, Scott Fitzgerald. Swept away from her stable home life into Jazz Age New York and Paris, Zelda eventually learned to be a writer and a painter; and she came close to being a ballerina. An evocative portrayal of a talented woman's professional and emotional conflicts, this study contains extensive notes and new photographs.

Placing herself in the avid reader’s chair, Linda Wagner-Martin writes about women’s biography from George Eliot and Virginia Woolf to Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Mead, and even to Cher and Elizabeth Taylor. Along the way, she looks at dozens of other life stories, probing at the differences between biographies of men and women, prevailing stereotypes about women’s lives and roles, questions about what is public and private, and the hazy margins between autobiography, biography, and other genres. In quick paced and wide-ranging discussions, she looks at issues of authorial stance (who controls the narrative? who chooses which story to tell?), voice (is this story told in the traditional objective tone? and if it is, what effect does that telling have on our reading?), and the politics of publishing (why aren’t more books about women’s lives published? and when they are, what happens to their advertising budgets?). She discusses the problems of writing biography of achieving women who were also wives (how does the biographer balance the two?), of daughters who attempt to write about their mothers, and of husbands trying to portray their wives.Telling Women’s Lives is the first overview of the writing and the history of biographies about women. It is a significant contribution to the reassessment of the work of the hundreds of women writers who have made a difference in our conception of what women’s stories--and women’s lives--have been, and are becoming. The book is a must read for anyone who loves reading biographies, particularly biographies of women.

A revised edition of Linda Wagner-Martin's comprehensive study of the novels, stories, essays and poetry of American author Barbara Kingsolver. Now updated so that coverage runs from Kingsolver's first novel, The Bean Trees, through to her most recent, Demon Copperhead. Author of the only biography of Barbara Kingsolver and of a reader’s guide to The Poisonwood Bible, Wagner-Martin has become the leading authority on this Pulitzer-prize-wining author. Here she covers every work in Kingsolver’s oeuvre, emphasizing the writer’s blend of the scientific method in which she was formally trained with her convincing understanding of the human characters that fill her books. What Kingsolver achieves throughout all her writing is a seamless blending of the various parts of human existence. She melds important themes through parts and pieces of the natural world—the African snakes, the Monarch butterflies, the coyotes in Deanna Wolfe’s existence. Repeatedly Kingsolver writes to create both characters and the characters’ worlds, bringing all these pieces into masterful, and whole, realities. This edition includes two new chapters - one on her 2018 novel, Unsheltered, and the second on her 2022 novel, Demon Copperhead - and is the first study of Kingsolver to publish since she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2023.

A revised edition of Linda Wagner-Martin's comprehensive study of the novels, stories, essays and poetry of American author Barbara Kingsolver. Now updated so that coverage runs from Kingsolver's first novel, The Bean Trees, through to her most recent, Demon Copperhead. Author of the only biography of Barbara Kingsolver and of a reader’s guide to The Poisonwood Bible, Wagner-Martin has become the leading authority on this Pulitzer-prize-wining author. Here she covers every work in Kingsolver’s oeuvre, emphasizing the writer’s blend of the scientific method in which she was formally trained with her convincing understanding of the human characters that fill her books. What Kingsolver achieves throughout all her writing is a seamless blending of the various parts of human existence. She melds important themes through parts and pieces of the natural world—the African snakes, the Monarch butterflies, the coyotes in Deanna Wolfe’s existence. Repeatedly Kingsolver writes to create both characters and the characters’ worlds, bringing all these pieces into masterful, and whole, realities. This edition includes two new chapters - one on her 2018 novel, Unsheltered, and the second on her 2022 novel, Demon Copperhead - and is the first study of Kingsolver to publish since she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2023.