Life & Work: Writers, Readers, and the Conversations Between Them

Are fiction writers and readers influenced by their personal histories? Noted literary critic and author Parks (Europa) proposes that tensions among competing values provide a world in which book lovers discover and construct their own personalities. The first 17 essays focus on the biographical influences of generations of authors from Charles Dickens to Haruki Murakami. Novelists and playwrights presented include Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Muriel Spark, J.M. Coetzee, and Dave Eggers. The final pieces examine the atmosphere in three contemporary works: Peter Matthiessen's In Paradise (2014), Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008), and E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey (2012), each offering a diverse platform to explore complicated topics such as the Holocaust, evil, and sex. Overall, the leap Parks takes from Dickens's Great Expectations in the opening essay to James's Fifty Shades of Grey in the final discussion is noteworthy.