Secret Histories: Reading Twentieth-Century American Literature

by David Wyatt

Overview

Secret Histories claims that the history of the nation is hidden—in plain sight—within the pages of twentieth-century American literature. David Wyatt argues that the nation's fiction and nonfiction expose a "secret history" that cuts beneath the "straight histories" of our official accounts. And it does so by revealing personal stories of love, work, family, war, and interracial romance as they were lived out across the decades of the twentieth century.

Wyatt reads authors both familiar and neglected, examining "double consciousness" in the post–Civil War era through works by Charles W. Chesnutt, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington. He reveals aspects of the Depression in the fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anzia Yezierska, and John Steinbeck. Period by period, Wyatt's nuanced readings recover the felt sense of life as it was lived, opening surprising dimensions of the critical issues of a given time. The rise of the women's movement, for example, is revivified in new appraisals of works by Eudora Welty, Ann Petry, and Mary McCarthy.

Running through the examination of individual works and times is Wyatt's argument about reading itself. Reading is not a passive activity but an empathetic act of cocreation, what Faulkner calls "overpassing to love." Empathetic reading recognizes and relives the emotional, cultural, and political dimensions of an individual and collective past. And discovering a usable American past, as Wyatt shows, enables us to confront the urgencies of our present moment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801897122
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2010
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David Wyatt is a professor of English at the University of Maryland.

Table of Contents

To the Reader ix

Acknowledgments xvii

1 The Body and the Corporation

Norris

Chambers 1

2 Double Consciousness

Johnson

Chesnutt

Du Bois

Washington 12

3 Pioneering Women

Austin

Eaton

Stein

Eliot

Williams

Cather 30

4 Performing Maleness

Hemingway 53

5 Colored Me

Toomer

Hurston 68

6 The Rumor of Race

Faulkner 86

7 The Depression

Dreiser

Fitzgerald

Yezierska

Di Donato

Himes

Farrell

Steinbeck 105

8 The Second World War

Mori

Vonnegut

Pynchon

Silko

Hersey 135

9 Civil Rights

Wright

Gaines

Baldwin

Walker

King

Clark 163

10 Love and Separateness

Welty

Petry

Douglas

Mary Mccarthy

Friedan

Steinbeck 190

11 Revolt and Reaction

Mailer

Didion 215

12 The Postmodern

Shepard

Beattie

Carver

Delillo

Gaddis 234

13 Studying War

Cormac Mccarthy

Herr 259

14 Slavery and Memory

Morrison 280

15 Pa Not Pa

Kingston

Walker

Ellison

Lee

Rodriguez 292

16 After Innocence

Roth 312

A Personal Note 331

Notes 335

Works Cited 377

Index 393

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This book offers a scholarly career's worth of genuine insight and illumination.
—Bryan Waterman, New York University

Bryan Waterman

This book offers a scholarly career's worth of genuine insight and illumination.

Editorial Reviews

A useful introduction to a broad canon of 20th-century authors, this book touches on important issues in literary-historical scholarship and uses clear, conversational language deliberately devoid of jargon; a distinctive feature of the discussion is Wyatt's pointed use of a first-person personal voice that blends his autobiographical insights with his critical readings . . . Highly recommended.
—Choice

His latest book shows that Wyatt's skill as an engaging literary historian is certainly no secret.
—Erik Larson, Western American Literature

A sweeping critical work that is compelling, always interesting, and often moving.
—Mitchell Breitwieser, The Hopkins Review

I felt fortunate to come across David Wyatt's Secret Histories because Wyatt so clearly delights in American fiction.
—Kimberly Engber, Reviews in American History

The secret history his book truly tells is one of the remarkable readers's engagement with the diversity of American literature. Wyatt testifies to the power that strong novels have to transform the reader's sense of the world and his or her place in it . . . The works of fifty-six American novelists with different historical and aesthetic perspectives, novelists who are men and women, novelists who are brown, black, and white, come alive and speak to the ongoing richness and variety of American literature in the twentieth century. It is a remarkable achievement, especially given the current critical context of American literary studies.
—Timothy Parrish, American Literature

From the Publisher

His latest book shows that Wyatt's skill as an engaging literary historian is certainly no secret.

Western American Literature - Erik Larson

I felt fortunate to come across David Wyatt's Secret Histories because Wyatt so clearly delights in American fiction.

Reviews in American History - Kimberly Engber

A useful introduction to a broad canon of 20th-century authors, this book touches on important issues in literary-historical scholarship and uses clear, conversational language deliberately devoid of jargon; a distinctive feature of the discussion is Wyatt's pointed use of a first-person personal voice that blends his autobiographical insights with his critical readings . . . Highly recommended.

Choice

The secret history his book truly tells is one of the remarkable readers's engagement with the diversity of American literature. Wyatt testifies to the power that strong novels have to transform the reader's sense of the world and his or her place in it . . . The works of fifty-six American novelists with different historical and aesthetic perspectives, novelists who are men and women, novelists who are brown, black, and white, come alive and speak to the ongoing richness and variety of American literature in the twentieth century. It is a remarkable achievement, especially given the current critical context of American literary studies.

American Literature - Timothy Parrish

The secret history his book truly tells is one of the remarkable readers's engagement with the diversity of American literature. Wyatt testifies to the power that strong novels have to transform the reader's sense of the world and his or her place in it... The works of fifty-six American novelists with different historical and aesthetic perspectives, novelists who are men and women, novelists who are brown, black, and white, come alive and speak to the ongoing richness and variety of American literature in the twentieth century. It is a remarkable achievement, especially given the current critical context of American literary studies.

— Timothy Parrish

American Literature

I felt fortunate to come across David Wyatt's Secret Histories because Wyatt so clearly delights in American fiction.

— Kimberly Engber

Reviews in American History

A sweeping critical work that is compelling, always interesting, and often moving.

— Mitchell Breitwieser

The Hopkins Review

His latest book shows that Wyatt's skill as an engaging literary historian is certainly no secret.

— Erik Larson

Western American Literature

A sweeping critical work that is compelling, always interesting, and often moving.

The Hopkins Review - Mitchell Breitwieser