The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781555974732)

Charles Baxter inaugurates The Art of, a new series on the craft of writing, with the wit and intelligence he brought to his celebrated book Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction.

Fiction writer and essayist Charles Baxter's The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot discusses and illustrates the hidden subtextual overtones and undertones in fictional works haunted by the unspoken, the suppressed, and the secreted. Using an array of examples from Melville and Dostoyevsky to contemporary writers Paula Fox, Edward P. Jones, and Lorrie Moore, Baxter explains how fiction writers create those visible and invisible details, how what is displayed evokes what is not displayed.

The Art of Subtext is part of The Art of series, a new line of books by important authors on the craft of writing, edited by Charles Baxter. Each book examines a singular, but often assumed or neglected, issue facing the contemporary writer of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. The Art of series means to restore the art of criticism while illuminating the art of writing.

Author: Charles Baxter
ISBN-10: 1555974732
ISBN-13: 9781555974732
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Language: English
Published: 07/24/2007
Pages: 120
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.20h x 5.10w x 0.60d
Award: Minnesota Book Award - Winner

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 09/01/2007 pg. 135
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2008 pg. 257