Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Banks, Russell - Russell Banks, Robert Faggen, and Barry Munger (interview date summer 1998)

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Russell Banks, Robert Faggen, and Barry Munger (interview date summer 1998)

SOURCE: Banks, Russell, Robert Faggen, and Barry Munger. “Russell Banks: The Art of Fiction CLII.” Paris Review 40, no. 147 (summer 1998): 50-88.

[In the following interview, Banks discusses his writing career, the literary influences behind his body of work, his creative process, and his approach to the legend of John Brown in Cloudsplitter.]

Russell Banks was born on March 28, 1940, in Newton, Massachusetts, and raised in the small town of Barnstead, New Hampshire, the son of Earl and Florence Banks. His father, a plumber, deserted the family when Banks was twelve. Banks helped provide for his mother and three siblings. An excellent student, winning a full scholarship to Colgate University, he dropped out in his first year with the intention of joining Fidel Castro's insurgent army in Cuba, but wound up working in a department store in Lakeland, Florida. He...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Howard Frank Mosher (review date 8 September 1991)
   2. Jeff Danziger (review date 24 September 1991)
   3. Donna Rifkind (review date 17 April 1992)
   4. James Finn Cotter (review date 2 May 1992)
   5. Ross Leckie (essay date summer 1994)
   6. Richard Eder (review date 21 May 1995)
   7. Ann Hulbert (review date 29 May 1995)
   8. Penelope Mesic (review date 11 June 1995)
   9. Phil Baker (review date 30 June 1995)
   10. Brian Morton (review date 7 July 1995)
   11. Ed Peaco (review date fall 1995)
   12. Jerry Herron (essay date fall 1996)
   13. Robert Niemi (essay date 1997)
   14. Henry Mayer (review date 8 March 1998)
   15. Russell Banks and Christine Benvenuto (interview date March-April 1998)
   16. Alfred Kazin (review date 9 April 1998)
   17. Lawrence Hill (review date 13 April 1998)
   18. James M. McPherson (review date May 1998)
   19. Joyce Appleby (review date 22 May 1998)
   20. Russell Banks, Robert Faggen, and Barry Munger (interview date summer 1998)
   21. Millicent Bell (review date fall 1998)
   22. Paul Binding (review date 15 September 2000)
   23. Kathleen Snodgrass (review date spring 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright