American Fiction


Feature Writer: Melissa Howard
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From Harriet Beecher Stowe to Jack Keruoac or from Little Women to Catcher in the Rye, American Fiction has enough great literature to appease the most avid intellectual or introduce the novice gently to the American voice. Do you wish for something a bit lighter? We can introduce you writers from Zane Gray to Stephen King.

We have reviews of the Great American Novel, short stories and forgotten gems from the past. We will keep you up-to-date with author biographies, interviews, and the story behind the story.

American literary soil is rich; let us introduce you to the worker’s of that soil and their products.

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feature articles
Melissa Howard

Isolation and Community in Poe

In: Classic American Fiction

Donne and Poe both deal with man in isolation. The end is the same but the outlook is different. more...

For Whom Does Poe's Bell Ring?

In: Classic American Fiction

Edgar Allan Poe's fascination with bells and chimes could be inspired by John Donne's famous meditation that includes the line "Ask not for whom the bell tolls..." more...

Allegory in Masque of Red Death

In: Classic American Fiction

While many argue that Poe did not intend the story to be an allegory, looking at the elements of the story as pieces in an allegory is an easy way to understand it. more...

A Severed Wasp by L'Engle

In: American Fiction (general)

A novel about human through the lens of art, psychology, spirituality; and as lived by one of L'Engle's most fascinating characters, Katherine Forrester Vigneras. more...

The Masque of the Red Death

In: Classic American Fiction

A synopsis of the main plot points in Edgar Allen Poe's short story The Masque of the Red Death. more...

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feature blog
Melissa Howard

Apr 30, 2008

Compulsive Reading

Have you ever found yourself bogged down in a book you don't like? I often do.


You started the book because it was a classic or because it seemed interesting when you picked it off the shelf at the library. After twenty-five pages, you put it down. Several days later you pick it up again and read ten more pages. You keep picking it up because it haunts you.

The haunting by this book isn't because it is so compelling. It isn't. You've already decided it is the stupidest book you've ever read but you keep picking it up. Leaving a book unfinished is like leaving food on your plate. Some starving child in Africa wants your food and some illiterate child in the ghetto wants your book. You must finish.

In steps Sarah Nelson, she writes "Allowing yourself to stop reading a book - at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end - is a rite of passage in a reader's life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions."

Alleluia!!

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