David Madden is a prolific writer who has worked in almost every literary genre. In addition to his novels, he has published numerous essays, short stories, and poems in a range of journals and magazines; short-story collections, The Shadow Knows (1970) and The New Orleans of Possibilities (1982); several plays, including both one-act and three-act versions of Cassandra Singing (1955); a number of book-length critical studies; as well as a film script for the television film of The Suicide’s Wife. Additionally, Madden has edited more than ten volumes on such diverse subjects as the proletarian and tough-guy writers of the 1930’s as well as on James Agee, Nathanael West, the short story, film and the commedia dell’arte, and the popular-culture explosion.

David Madden’s work has been unevenly recognized throughout his career. His early novels—The Beautiful Greed, a master’s thesis project, and “Hair of the Dog,” initially published in Adam but never reprinted as a book—received virtually no attention at the time of their publication. Although Harry T. Moore praised Cassandra Singing, Brothers in Confidence, and Bijou as “significant contributions to contemporary American fiction,” other critics have not viewed Madden’s work so favorably. While writer Walker Percy found Bijou “a triumphant, brutal story of growing up,” some reviewers faulted it for lack of unity and excessive nostalgia. Mixed responses also greeted Pleasure-Dome. One critic praised it as a “lyrical, quite wonderful novel”; another found it too “demanding and sometimes a bore.”

Madden’s short stories, however, have received more consistent recognition. Two appeared in The Best American Short Stories, for 1969 and 1971, respectively, and The Shadow Knows, Madden’s first collection of short fiction, was the National Arts Council selection for 1970. In 1969, he received a Rockefeller grant for fiction.

Madden’s achievement in the novel form rests in his exploration of the oral storytelling tradition and his evocation of east Tennessee and Kentucky landscapes and experiences, especially those of his youth. He often reworks autobiographical material—the major exception is The Suicide’s Wife—much of it found in earlier novels or stories. Characters and situations recur; earlier stories reappear as segments of a later novel. Though redundant and at times tedious for the reader engaged in surveying all of Madden’s novels, the retelling of this material in different forms allows the novelist to experiment with narrative voice and to explore in depth the relationship between the storyteller and the listener, a subject that has fascinated Madden since his youth.