Research Catalog

The Christ-haunted landscape : faith and doubt in southern fiction

Title: The Christ-haunted landscape : faith and doubt in southern fiction / by Susan Ketchin.
Author: Ketchin, Susan.
Publication: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, ©1994.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Book/Text	Use in library	PS261 .K416 1994	Off-site

Details

Description

xix, 408 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"Old-time religion" has been and still is a uniquely potent force in shaping the imaginations of southern fiction writers. A little more than a generation ago, Flannery O'Connor made a startling observation about herself and her fellow southerners: "By and large," she said, "people in the South still conceive of humanity in theological terms. While the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner who isn't convinced of it is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God." Still earlier in the century H.L. Mencken wrote that the South consisted of a "cesspool of Baptists, a miasma of Methodists, snake charmers, phony real estate operators, and syphilitic evangelists."
This book explores the roles that various strands of southern religion, most prominently Evangelical Protestantism (both black and white) and Catholicism, have played in shaping contemporary southern fiction. The Christ-Haunted Landscape collects works by twelve southerners living and working in the South - Larry Brown, Reynolds Price, Allan Gurganus, Lee Smith, Clyde Edgerton, Harry Crews, Will Campbell, Doris Betts, Sheila Bosworth, Mary Ward Brown, Randall Kenan, and Sandra Hollin blowers. Susan Ketchin has included a descriptive profile and an original interview with each author, critical commentaries on each author's works as a whole, and representative fiction (short story or excerpt from a novel). Her introduction discusses the religious and cultural forces that have impact on today's imaginative writers whose fiction is enhanced by the legacy of Faulkner, O'Connor, and Percy.

Subject

Genre/Form

Church history.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [396]-398) and index.

Contents

1. Lee Smith. God Not Only Speaks But Sings. "Tongues of Fire" Interview -- 2. Reynolds Price. Saintly Outlaws. "Full Day" Interview -- 3. Larry Brown. Proceeding Out from Calamity. "A Roadside Resurrection" Interview -- 4. Sheila Bosworth. On Being Southern, Catholic, and Female. From Slow Poison. Interview -- 5. Sandra Hollin Flowers. Something's Got a Hold on Me. "Hope of Zion" Interview -- 6. Will Campbell. Mississippi Madness, Mississippi Magic. From Cecelia's Sin. Interview -- 7. Doris Betts. Resting on the Bedrock of Original Sin. "This Is the Only Time I'll Tell It" Interview -- 8. Randall Kenan. Ancient Spells and Incantations. "The Strange and Tragic Ballad of Mabel Pearsall" Interview -- 9. Mary Ward Brown. Celebrating the True and Lively Word. "A New Life" Interview -- 10. Harry Crews. The Writer as Shaman. From Scar Lover. Interview -- 11. Clyde Edgerton. A Garden of Paradoxes. From Raney. Interview -- 12. Allan Gurganus. When I'm Fog on a Coffin Lid. "It Had Wings."

ISBN

0878056696
9780878056699
087805670X
9780878056705

LCCN

93030875

OCLC

ocm28631374
28631374
SCSB-2008071

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library