Rediscoveries: Informal Essays in Which Well-Known Novelists Rediscover Neglected Works of Fiction By One of Their Favorite Authors

REDISCOVERIES was born when novelist and critic David Madden asked some of our most outstanding fiction writers to "rediscover" a favorite, little-known work and provide readers with new insights into and fresh understandings of these remarkable books. The combined enthusiasm of the editor and the writers has brought the art of criticism to its pinnacle, revealing what the professional writer looks for in a book he would recommend to others, what brings him back to a book many times. Each of these twenty-seven critical essays will introduce the reader ti a book whose merits were overlooked or long forgotten, opening up a fascinating new world of reading experience, sharing an appreciation of rare literary appeal. In writing about Harriette Arnow's The Dollmaker, Joyce Carol Oates explains why that novel is "our most unpretentious American masterpiece." A "funny-sad" novel of Jewish America, Daniel Fuchs's Homage to Blenholt is discussed by Irwin Shaw, who describes it as an early Portnoy's Complaint. And Gertrude Stein's "most daring book," Things As They Are, a lesbian love story written with "total intellectual candor," is revealed in its universality and psychological accuracy by Jane Mayhall. In a brilliant piece, Robert Penn Warren tells how Andrew Lytle's neglected novel, The Long Night, which "says something about the world of the South not said elsewhere," grew out of a strange story of retribution. Warren Eyster produces a strong case for Humphrey Cobb's Paths of Glory, which "makes Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front seem merely sentimental, and current anti-Vietnam talk a mere kindergarten protest." REDISCOVERIES also contains searching analyses of other neglected masterpieces: Mario Puzo's The Dark Arena, Marianne Hauser's A Lesson in Music, Walter M. Miller, Jr.,'s A Canticle for Leibowitz, Janet Lewis's The Wife of Martin Guerre, and many others equally deserving of a recognition that they never achieved when first published. As Davud Madden says in his introduction: "The purpose of REDISCOVERIES is to pay attention, and tribute, to works of art that are not known, even to many discriminating readers." It is a superb collection of warm, personal reactions, written especially for this book, by men and women whose life is literature. It is hoped that the book will spur the reader on to new heights of reading pleasure, to encourage him to explore new literary dimensions on his own, and to make rediscovering a rewarding pastime for everyone.