Patchwork: A Bobbie Ann Mason Reader

By Bobbie Ann Mason

Book Overview

Bobbie Ann Mason burst onto the American literary scene during a renaissance of short fiction that Raymond Carver called a "literary phenomenon." Anne Tyler hailed Mason as "a full-fledged master of the short story." Mason's work, charged with a spirit of exploration, garnered both popular and critical acclaim.

This reader collects outstanding examples of Mason's award-winning work from throughout her writing career and provides a unique look at the development of one of the country's finest writers. Patchwork contains short stories first published in the New Yorker and other leading periodicals; chapters from Mason's acclaimed novels, including In Country, An Atomic Romance, and The Girl in the Blue Beret; and riveting excerpts from Mason's eclectic nonfiction. Some examples of Mason's recent explorations in flash fiction appear here in print for the first time.

Mason's writing glows with a nuanced understanding of the struggles and pathos of American life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. George Saunders writes in his introduction, "Bobbie Ann Mason is a strange and beautiful writer. . . . Her stories exist to gently touch on, and praise, even mourn, what it feels like to be alive in this moment." Patchwork conveys Mason's extraordinary talent and range as a writer.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813175453
• ISBN13: 9780813175454
• Release Date: June 2018
• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.2" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher