{"product_id":"conversations-with-mary-gordon-alma-bennett-9781578064472","title":"Conversations with Mary Gordon","description":"In \u003ci\u003eConversations with Mary Gordon\u003c\/i\u003e, the author reveals her intellectual vigor, her freewheeling humor, and her strongly held opinions on issues ranging from sex to contemporary literature and gender theory. With candor, she details her departure from and eventual return to her Irish-Catholic heritage. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Since the resounding success of her first novel, \u003ci\u003eFinal Payments\u003c\/i\u003e (1978), Gordon has been one of America's most popular and controversial writers. She has published five novels, three novellas, two collections of essays, a short story collection, a memoir, a biography of Joan of Arc, and dozens of book reviews. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eConversations with Mary Gordon\u003c\/i\u003e joins the writer in talks with Terry Gross, Charlie Rose, Edmund White, Madison Smartt Bell, Patrick H. Samway, and others. Nine of these interviews have never before been published. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Her many interviewers know her as a wonderful, gregarious, passionate, and articulate interviewee. This is surprising, considering that Gordon once insisted during an interview that \"interviews are absolutely my idea of hell.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The clarity and conviction evident in her writing are matched by the same qualities in her conversation. She explores her favorite novelists--Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Ford Madox Ford--and talks at length about how and why she uses Roman Catholicism as metaphor and symbol in her own writing. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Freely discussing the autobiographic influences in her work, she is open about the huge influence of her father. David Gordon, a journalist and scholar, who died when Mary was seven. Mary loved him dearly, and she discusses his influence on her life and writing, as well as her profound disillusionment with him when she discovered the self-hatred and ultra-conservatism of his writing. Her utter devotion to him in early interviews gives way to disillusionment, rejection, and, ultimately, acceptance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Alma Bennett\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1578064473\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781578064472\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University Press of Mississippi\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/25\/2002\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 206\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.75lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 5.94w x 0.73d","brand":"Alma Bennett","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46795389632767,"sku":"9781578064472","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_8e1a0155-6c9d-49e6-b87d-c4a64241a17a.jpg?v=1744947452","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/conversations-with-mary-gordon-alma-bennett-9781578064472","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}