The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Jane Smiley
- First Published: 1998
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Historical fiction
- Subjects: Abolitionists, Slavery or slaves, Marriage, Mistaken or secret identity, Midwest, Civil War, Bereavement or grief, Frontier or pioneer life
- Locales: Kansas, Illinois, Missouri
Two distinct impulses—one political and one aesthetic—inspired The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton. Timothy McVeigh's 1993 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City awoke Smiley's interest in the legacy of ideologically driven violence scarring American history, while her desire to create fiction in each of the major narrative genres led her to cast her tale as a literary romance—in her words, “a story in which the protagonist sets out on a journey and sees many amazing things.” Since the novel's publication, critics have also...
[The entire page is 894 words long]
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