Paul Ruffin

Here's to Noah, Bless His Ark, and Other Musings

George Garrett

"Southern fiction is alive and kicking and going off in all kinds of directions as this old century staggers to an end." To prove their audacious pronouncement, George Garrett and Paul Ruffin have assembled thirty-one stories representing the best of recent Southern fiction. These stories weave together themes that underscore what being Southern is all about: the retelling of the past, the uncertainty of the future, the haunting presence of racial guilt, the inescapable influence of family - for better or worse, the struggle for survival, and the tragedy and humor of Southern life. As Fred Chappell writes in introducing these works: "Southern literature is almost as legendary a part of Southern history as the battles and politics." Born of a Texas Review competition to honor outstanding new writing, the collection snowballed as Garrett and Ruffin realized that Southern fiction of the 1990s merits a gathering all its own. The contributors hail from nearly every Southern state - Texas to Virginia; their subjects span the world; their styles fit no defined formulas; their works both praise and parody the literary legacy of their forebears. Some writers are well known while others are virtually unknown. Only two stories have appeared in previous collections. Unified by excellence as much as by region, these works comprise the most representative, comprehensive, and entertaining collection of short Southern fiction to be published in decades.

That's what I Like (about the South), and Other New Southern Stories for the Nineties

Donald V. Coers

Robert J. DeMott

Traditionally, the critical reputation of Nobel Prize-winning American novelist John Steinbeck (1902-1968) has rested on his achievements of the 1930s, especially In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Long Valley (1938), and, of course, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), one of the most powerful - and arguable on of the greatest - American novels of this century. Book reviewers and academic critics often turned antagonistic toward Steinbeck when he no longer produced work with the sweeping reach and social consciousness of The Grapes of Wrath. He was accused of selling out, or co-opting his talent, when in fact the inordinate public success of Grapes and especially its attendant notoriety had caused a backlash for Steinbeck. As a result he became self-conscious about his own ability, and suspicious of that "clumsy vehicle," the novel. The very act of researching and writing Grapes, which occupied him fully for several years and which he had already conceived as his final book on proletarian themes, changed him drastically. No longer willing to be the chronicler of Depression-era subjects, Steinbeck went afield to find new roots, new sources, new forms. For example, in the six years following the publication of Grapes, Steinbeck completed a suit of love poems; a full-length novel (bastardized by Alfred Hitchcock in his 1943 film, Lifeboat); a nonfiction scientific book, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (with Edward F. Ricketts); a documentary film, The Forgotten Village; a documentary book to help the war effort, Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team; a series of articles he wrote as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune (later collected as Once There Was a War); and two novels, The Moon Is Down and Cannery Row. Steinbeck came to define himself less as a novelist and more as a man of letters, a restless experimenter with form and subject matter, and a prophetic postmodernist whose key subject for the rest of his career was the dilemma of individual choice and ethical consciousness. Thus, Steinbeck's later fiction, from The Moon Is Down (1942) through The Winter of Our Discontent (1962), and his later nonfiction, from Sea of Cortez (1941) through Travels with Charley (1962) and America and Americans (1966), often shows a different set of stylistic, thematic, and philosophical bearings from his earlier work and underscores his dramatic shift toward "individual thinking." A full appreciation of Steinbeck's mid-career metamorphosis and, consequently, of his later achievement requires a corresponding shift in critical approach - a departure from the traditional New Critical norms. Instead of marginalizing these works, all the contributors to this volume agree that Steinbeck's later publications merit - indeed, demand - closer scrutiny. Written especially for this collection in honor of Professor Tetsumaro Hayashi, the distinguished founder and editor-in-chief of the Steinbeck Quarterly, on his retirement from Ball State University and his move to Kwassui Women's College in Nagasaki, Japan, these essays explore new ways of addressing Steinbeck's later work and career, and include forays into subjects as diverse as ethnicity and music. They range from treatment of his post-structuralist use of language in Sea of Cortez and his involvement as a speech writer for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's reelection bid in 1944 to the influence of Charles Darwin's theories of sexual selection in The Wayward Bus, his revision of the myth of Cain in The Winter of Our Discontent, and his employment of Arthurian quest values in his last book, America and Americans. For this group of critics - which includes respected veteran Steinbeck scholars Robert DeMott, John Ditsky, Mimi Gladstein, Cliff Lewis, Robert Morsberger, Susan Shillinglaw, and Roy Simmonds, as well as talented new voices Debra Barker, Kevin Hearle, Michael Meyer, Brian Railsback, Eiko Shiraga, and Geralyn Strecker - The Moon is Down and The Wayward Bus loom as significant works in the post 1930s re-evaluation (two essays each appear on these works). The book also includes Donald Coers's interview with the writer's widow, Elaine Steinbeck, the first of its kind ever published. After The Grapes of Wrath opens with eminent Americanist Warren French's appreciation of Professor Hayashi's distinguished career and his influence in Steinbeck studies; a bibliography of Hayashi's major publication concludes this honorary gathering.

Essays on John Steinbeck in Honor of Tetsumaro Hayashi

After the Grapes of Wrath

This fourth collection of essays by Paul Ruffin highlights his idiosyncratic wit and practiced storytelling skills in memorable autobiographic pieces ranging from the comic to the confessional. The first section, "Things Literary, More or Less," includes the title essay, in which Ruffin takes the reader on a rollicking tour with iconic Southern writer George Garrett, which ends with the two men locating the ghostly remains of an obscure Texas hamlet called Ben Hur and talking with an eccentric representative of the town's handful of inhabitants. In other essays Ruffin workshops a cowboy poem with a couple of deputy sheriffs, reveals aspects of Edgar Allan Poe's life never before published, reviews some unusual books, and shares the story of a boy who speaks only in hymns. Ruffin concludes the section with the tale of an invigorating flight to San Juan in an old DC-6. In the next section, "On Likker and Guns," Ruffin summarizes his drinking career, transcribes the conversation between two rats that destroy his university office, and tells the tale of a bowhunter who asked him for his deer bladder. He also introduces the reader to a sharpshooter who, while trying to demonstrate his prowess with an old rifle, kills an old man's tractor. Finally Ruffin takes the reader on a trip to a Texas gun show to meet the menacing Boram, the clueless Billy Wayne, and a vigilant wife dedicated to preserving the family budget. The book ends with an excerpt from Ruffin's unpublished memoir, "Growing Up in Mississippi Poor and White but Not Quite Trash," in which the author recalls his agonizing boyhood quest to unlock the mysteries of sex: "Never under this sun was there a child more ignorant of the act, the organs involved, or its marvelous potential for pleasure and fulfillment. And never was there a child who tried harder to understand." Through Ruffin's sly vision of himself and his surroundings and his ability to focus attention on life's curious, defining moments, these essays reflect some of the best aspects of contemporary literary nonfiction. Every tale is vibrantly alive with the sincere voice, crisp details, bold images, and distinctive dialogue that readers have come to relish in Ruffin's myriad writings.

Paul Ruffin

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