Bobbie Ann Mason Criticism
Bobbie Ann Mason, an eminent figure in American literature, is acclaimed for her insightful explorations of cultural and social dynamics in the Southern United States. Her literary contributions primarily unfold within the realms of short stories and novels, and they frequently focus on themes such as upheaval and identity. Mason's narratives, rooted in her rural Kentucky upbringing, often depict characters from blue-collar backgrounds dealing with the complexities of modern life. This is vividly illustrated through her adept use of popular culture references and her exploration of the tension between tradition and change, as seen in her collections like Shiloh, and Other Stories and Love Life. Meanwhile, works such as In Country and Spence + Lila offer profound reflections on the past's lingering influence and the intimate struggles faced within familial contexts.
In her novel Feather Crowns, Mason transitions to historical fiction, where she examines themes of fame and self-determination through a unique narrative about a woman who gives birth to quintuplets. Her memoir, Clear Springs, presents a personal narrative that highlights her 1950s Kentucky upbringing. Critics often categorize Mason's work under "minimalism" and "dirty realism" due to her restrained prose style. While some argue this creates a sense of distance, others, like Albert E. Wilhelm, commend her for effectively portraying the impact of societal changes on everyday individuals.
Mason's storytelling is further lauded for its authentic Southern voice and humor, with critics such as Anne Tyler and David Quammen appreciating her empathetic depiction of muted frustrations and existential uncertainties. However, some reviewers, including Robert Towers, point out that her stories occasionally lack resolution, a characteristic trait of modern fiction. Despite this, Mason's ability to portray the quiet resilience of her characters ensures her work remains compelling.
Interviews, such as A Conversation with Bobbie Ann Mason, reveal her focus on character depth and authenticity, aligning with Joanna Price's analysis of how her narratives mirror adaptations to evolving landscapes. Though some, like Patricia Vigderman, argue her work occasionally lacks expected emotional depth, the intricate details and Southern heritage grounding Mason's stories resonate powerfully with readers.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Mason, Bobbie Ann (Vol. 154)
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Private Rituals: Coping with Change in the Fiction of Bobbie Ann Mason
(summary)
In the following essay, Wilhelm discusses the effects of social change on the lives of everyday people, a primary theme in Mason's stories.
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A Conversation with Bobbie Ann Mason
(summary)
In the following conversation, Kling and Mason discuss the latter's literary approach, revealing her emphasis on character depth and emotional authenticity over theoretical frameworks, while also exploring her resistance to academic labels and her intuitive, surface-level writing process that resonates with personal and familial experiences.
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Review of Spence + Lila
(summary)
In the following mixed review of Spence + Lila, Krist applauds Mason's writing, but wishes the novel was more satisfying.
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The World of Bobbie Ann Mason
(summary)
In the following review, Jersild discusses the characterizations in Spence + Lila and Love Life. Jersild asserts that protagonists in Mason's fiction rely on the physical details of their lives to keep them grounded, but tend to remain disconnected from their feelings.
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Mason's ‘Drawing Names’
(summary)
In the following essay, Underwood compares the husbands and boyfriends in Mason's short story, “Drawing Names” to the biblical three Wise Men.
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Mason's In Country.
(summary)
In the following essay, Morrissey analyzes the bird metaphors in the novel In Country. Birds and images of flight help to elucidate the psychological states of the principal characters of Bobbie Ann Mason's compelling post-Vietnam War novel, In Country. Sam Hughes, posthumous daughter of a Kentucky farm boy killed at Quang Ngai, and her Uncle Emmett, a veteran whose life is stalled, struggle to come to terms with a war that has been banished from public consciousness.
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‘Humping the Boonies’: Sex, Combat, and the Female in Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country
(summary)
In the following essay, Kinney examines how In Country metaphorically depicts the relationship between women and war.
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Realism, Verisimilitude, and the Depiction of Vietnam Veterans in In Country
(summary)
In the following essay, Stewart discusses what he feels to be the merits and flaws in the depictions of Vietnam veterans in the novel In Country. Bobbie Ann Mason's 1985 novel In Country is the story of teenager Sam Hughes's remarkable desire to come to terms with the Vietnam War and of her maternal uncle Emmett Smith's equally remarkable inability to do the same. Sam's desire to know about Vietnam and to understand its consequences is striking because of her age and the intensity of her feelings. A war which ended when she was but a child is at the center of her life; as the narrator states: “She was feeling the delayed stress of the Vietnam War. It was her inheritance.” Sam has only just graduated from high school in the small, rural Kentucky town of Hopewell, but instead of concentrating seriously on college plans, summer work, or her future she is preoccupied with thoughts of her father, who was killed in Vietnam prior to Sam's first birthday without ever having seen her. She also finds herself attracted to Emmett's friend Tom, a Vietnam veteran who returned from the war sexually dysfunctional. Finally, she is beset with worries for her troubled uncle, whose health problems and difficulties integrating into the ordinary stream of Hopewell life Sam rightly attributes to his time as a soldier in Vietnam.
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‘Use To, the Menfolks Would Eat First’: Food and Food Rituals in the Fiction of Bobbie Ann Mason
(summary)
In the following essay, Hill discusses the significance of food in Mason's Shiloh, and Other Stories and In Country. In particular, Hill compares the modern-day meals in Mason's stories to more traditional southern fare, such as that of Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding.
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New Roles, New History, and New Patriotism: Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country
(summary)
In the following essay, Dwyer argues that Samantha's quest to learn Vietnam's history in In Country represents a redefinition of patriotism, history, and the family structure.
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Good Country People
(summary)
In the following review, Benedict identifies the strengths and weaknesses of Feather Crowns.
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Fame and Misfortune
(summary)
In the following review, Alther discusses the pacing of Mason's lengthy novel Feather Crowns and its colorful language.
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Back Home Again: Bobbie Ann Mason's ‘Shiloh.’
(summary)
In the following essay, Levy discusses the short story “Shiloh” and how it fits into the overall history of the short story genre.
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Signs and Portents
(summary)
In the following review, Clark examines Mason's skillful use of details in Feather Crowns, which takes place in 1900, at a time when rural preachers are predicting apocalypse and in a place where people discover signs of God's will in everything from meteor showers to 'the way a pair of birds sat on a branch.'
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The South and The West in Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country
(summary)
In the following essay, Krasteva maintains that while In Country takes place in an American South changed by urban life and pop culture, Mason does not strip her fictional world of the tenets of Southern tradition and community.
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Review of Feather Crowns
(summary)
In the following review, Folks offers a positive assessment of the writing and characterizations in Feather Crowns. In Feather Crowns Bobbie Ann Mason traces the life of Christianna Wilburn Wheeler or “Christie,” a young farm woman in western Kentucky who gives birth to the first recorded set of quintuplets in North America. Mason's historical fiction, which is inspired from an actual event but creates a wholly fictionalized community and richly detailed setting, succeeds admirably in telling “a life story” with realism and balance. In first-person narration, Mason reveals a woman whose ordinary life is transformed by a unique event. Driven by curiosity and by her insistence on keeping her heart alive, Christie triumphs by stubbornly preserving her selfhood within a world in which she, as a relatively poor, uneducated rural woman at the turn of the century, would be expected to have little self-determination.
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The Ambiguous Grail Quest in ‘Shiloh.’
(summary)
In the following essay, Blythe and Sweet discuss the universal Grail myth and how it relates to the short story “Shiloh.”
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An Interview with Bobbie Ann Mason
(summary)
In the following interview, Mason and Wilhelm explore how Mason's childhood experiences, the influence of other writers, and her upbringing in western Kentucky have shaped her literary work, emphasizing her focus on language and place as rich resources for her fiction.
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From Shiloh to In Country to Feather Crowns: Bobbie Ann Mason, Women's History, and Southern Fiction
(summary)
In the following essay, Pollack examines Mason's role as a southern literary figure, and asserts that Feather Crowns cemented Mason's place as a noted women's historian.
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Bobbie Ann Mason: Searching for Home
(summary)
In the following essay, Wilhelm examines Mason's portrayal of the effects of social change on her characters. Wilhelm refutes criticism that judges Mason's work as repetitive, demonstrating that her central theme is an important component of the “Big Bertha Stories” in Love Life as well as In Country.
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Old Roots, New Routes
(summary)
In the following review, McKee favorably compares Mason's Clear Springs to the genre of the traditional Southern autobiography. McKee highlights that Mason's writing is not an agonizing exploration of her past, but a powerful and beautifully articulated retelling of that exploration, ultimately conveying a sense of knowing and belonging.
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Going Nowhere Slow: The Post-South World of Bobbie Ann Mason
(summary)
In the following essay, Fine argues that Mason's depiction of the South in her short fiction lacks the traditional values found in the stories of other southern writers such as Flannery O'Connor.
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Oppositions in In Country
(summary)
In the following essay, O'Brien discusses symbolism and imagery in the novel In Country, noting how these elements lend depth and breadth to Mason's characters as well as the novel itself.
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Shiloh, and Other Stories
(summary)
In the following essay, Price examines Mason's use of central themes and metaphoric images to illustrate how the characters in Shiloh, and Other Stories adapt to changes in their daily lives and in their landscape.
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Private Rituals: Coping with Change in the Fiction of Bobbie Ann Mason
(summary)
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Mason, Bobbie Ann (Vol. 28)
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Kentucky Cameos
(summary)
In the following essay, Anne Tyler argues that Bobbie Ann Mason's Shiloh and Other Stories presents vividly drawn characters who navigate change with touching optimism, revealing profound insights and humor amid their simple lives, thereby offering an enriching and authentic portrayal of rural Kentuckian life.
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Plain Folk and Puzzling Changes
(summary)
In the following essay, David Quammen argues that Bobbie Ann Mason's "Shiloh and Other Stories" compellingly portrays the muted frustrations and existential doubts of working-class characters in western Kentucky as they face inevitable societal changes and personal disquiet, all rendered with Mason's remarkable talent and empathetic insight.
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Anatole Broyard
(summary)
In the following essay, Anatole Broyard explores how Bobbie Ann Mason's characters in "Shiloh and Other Stories" navigate the existential uncertainties and dislocations of small-town American life, contrasting them with more traditionally rooted European villagers and highlighting the poignant search for identity and meaning amidst modern anxieties.
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American Graffiti
(summary)
In the following essay, Robert Towers praises Bobbie Ann Mason's Shiloh and Other Stories for its vivid depiction of ordinary characters and technical prowess, while critiquing the uniformity of form and open-ended conclusions that characterize the collection.
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K-Marts and Failing Farms
(summary)
In the following essay, Patricia Vigderman critiques Bobbie Ann Mason's "Shiloh and Other Stories" for its engaging style and detailed depiction of everyday life, but argues that the emotional depth and character development are insufficient, rendering the stories ultimately unfulfilling.
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Fantasy Lives
(summary)
In the following essay, Francis King explores the themes of unraveling relationships and the persistent influence of the past in Bobbie Ann Mason's Shiloh, highlighting how her storytelling vividly evokes the lives of her characters and the illusions provided by television.
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Kentucky Cameos
(summary)
- Further Reading