novelists, american

Provides an exploration into the mind and soul of an African-American soldier, looking at his experiences in Vietnam surrounded by death and violence, and of his efforts to find a place in white society upon his return.

A biography of twentieth-century American novelist, journalist, and libertarian Isabel Paterson, describing her early life, education, personal relationships, and contribution to American political thought.

Contains seventeen interviews with American novelist Don DeLillo conducted over the course of twenty years, beginning in 1982.

"A first publication of the ... writer's personal correspondences includes ... teenage reports of her 1880s Red Cloud life, letters written during her early journalism years and the 1940s exchanges penned in observation of World War II and her own struggles with aging"-- Publishers description.

A biography of author Joseph Heller, discussing his experiences as a pilot fighting in France during World War II, which he based his novel "Catch-22" on, and his recovery from Guillain-Barr? syndrome.

Reveals Upton Sinclair's role as a social, political, and cultural reformer who was also a writer, filmmaker, women's rights advocate, and health pioneer, providing a new perspective on the activist's productive life.

Like most women, whether they?ve chosen the Fortune 500 career path or have had five kids by 35, Anna David wondered if she?d made the right choices. Anna vowed to use a newly discovered book as a lesson plan, venturing out of her comfort zone in the hope of overcoming the fears and insecurities that had haunted her for years. Embarking on a journey both intensely personal and undeniably universal, she becomes adventurous and spontaneous?reviving her wardrobe and apartment, taking French lessons, dashing off to Seville, and whiling nights away with men she never would have considered before. In the process, she ends up meeting the person really worth changing for: herself.

Here, Anne Lamott enters a new and unexpected chapter of her own life: grandmotherhood. Stunned to learn that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at nineteen, Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax's life. In careful and often hilarious detail, Lamott and Sam--about whom she first wrote so movingly in Operating Instructions--struggle to balance their changing roles with the demands of college and work, as they both forge new relationships with Jax's mother, who has her own ideas about how to raise a child. Lamott writes about the complex feelings that Jax fosters in her, recalling her own experiences with Sam when she was a single mother. Over the course of the year, the rhythms of life, death, family, and friends unfold in surprising and joyful ways. This is the true story of how the birth of a baby changes a family.

Oates talks about her works, her purposes, her concepts of literature, and her writing methods.