Petry, Ann (Vol. 7) - Petry, Ann 1911–
Petry, Ann 1911–
Ann Petry is a Black American author of novels, short stories, and books for children. Racial themes form the backbone of her fiction. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 5-8, rev. ed.)
Ann Petry … may prove in the end to be one of the most useful and important of all [Black novelists]….
Mrs. Petry has—this first must be granted—an uncomfortable tendency to contrive sordid plots (as opposed to merely writing of sordid events). She seems to require a "shocking" chain of scandalous doings, secret affairs, family skeletons revealed, brutal crimes, whispered evil, adulterous intrigue on which to cast her creative imagination, in the manner of the great Victorians or the tawdry moderns. So wise is her writing, though, so real are her characters, so total is her sympathy, that one can often accept the faintly cheap horrors and contrivances. Even if not, though, he can dispense with them. It may seem odd to suggest...
[The entire page is 1237 words long]
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