Bøger af Fred Hobson

In this insight-studded work that established him as the premier interpreter of southern literary culture, Fred Hobson explores the southern urge toward self-examination, the seeming compulsion of southern writers to discuss their region - some defending it, others damning it.

A refreshingly original treatment of racial change in the South, Fred Hobson's provocative work introduces a new subgenre in the field of southern literature. Anyone interested in the history and literature of the American South will be fascinated by this searching volume.

Perhaps the preeminent contemporary scholar of southern culture, Fred Hobson is adept at cutting through the many myths and self-illusions spun about the South and exposing a far more intriguing reality. In his inaugural collection of essays, Hobson offers both an astute and deeply personal take on American and southern life. He touches on history, literature, religion, family, race, and sports as he ponders various famous and obscure biographical and autobiographical figures. Hobson's own great-grandmother inspires the title essay, in which he investigates the whispered family rumor that Emily Mullen Gregory committed suicide by jumping down a well in the late nineteenth century. A happier female relative animates another absorbing chapter: Hobson's great aunt who left the benighted South with the intent of bringing enlightenment to China as a missionary and teacher and who became both friend and critic of Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Ruminative appraisals of H. L. Mencken, W. J. Cash, progressive journalist Gerald W. Johnson, social critic James McBride Dabbs, man of letters Louis D. Rubin, Jr., African American author Mary Mebane, and novelist Richard Ford add incrementally to the collection's overall intellectual pleasures. Hobson's concluding pieces take a more intimate turn as he reflects on his native North Carolina and the love of college basketball he shared with his father. Capturing both the richness and deficiencies of the South within the American society at large, The Silencing of Emily Mullen and Other Essays makes for exceptionally rewarding and enjoyable reading.

Examination of some prominent recent figures in Southern fiction. Hobson focuses on the differing ways in which such writers as Bobbie Ann Mason, Lee Smith and Barry Hannah have responded to the influences of commercial culture, such as television, rock music and theme parks.