A frequent complaint against contemporary American fiction is that too often it puts off readers in ways they find difficult to fathom. Books such as Bret Easto

With the 1965 publication of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote declared he broke new literary ground. But Capote's "nonfiction novel" belongs to a long Naturalist tr

African-American writer Richard Wright (1908-1960) was celebrated during the early 1940s for his searing autobiography (Black Boy) and fiction (Native Son). By

Framing his study with two cases of violence involving children in Chicago, he notes the degree to which violence in the novels is perpetrated by adults against

"In the beginning there was the bay, the land, the forty-three hills, the coastline down to Monterey, the strip of mountains, the quiet valley behind, the vast