{"product_id":"startling-figures-encounters-with-american-catholic-fiction-hardback-9781531503451","title":"Startling Figures; Encounters with American Catholic Fiction (Hardback) 9781531503451","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eStartling Figures\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eEncounters with American Catholic Fiction\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eMichael O'Connell (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781531503451\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 1 August 2023\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e176 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eStartling Figures \u003c\/i\u003eis about Catholic fiction in a secular age and the rhetorical strategies Catholic writers employ to reach a skeptical, indifferent, or even hostile audience. Although characters in contemporary Catholic fiction frequently struggle with doubt and fear, these works retain a belief in the possibility for transcendent meaning and value beyond the limits of the purely secular. Individual chapters include close readings of some of the best works of contemporary American Catholic fiction, which shed light on the narrative techniques that Catholic writers use to point their characters, and their readers, beyond the horizon of secularity and toward an idea of transcendence while also making connections between the widely acknowledged twentieth-century masters of the form and their twenty-first-century counterparts.\u003cbr\u003e This book is focused both on the aspects of craft that Catholic writers employ to shape the reader's experience of the story and on the effect the story has on the reader. One recurring theme that is central to both is how often Catholic writers use narrative violence and other, similar disorienting techniques in order to unsettle the reader. These moments can leave both characters within the stories and the readers themselves shaken and unmoored, and this, O'Connell argues, is often a first step toward the recognition, and even possibly the acceptance, of grace. Individual chapters look at these themes in the works of Flannery O'Connor, J. F. Powers, Walker Percy, Tim Gautreaux, Alice McDermott, George Saunders, and Phil Klay and Kirstin Valdez Quade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/b\u003e: \"Surprise Me\": Going inside the \"Black Box\" of Catholic Fiction   1\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e1 \u003c\/b\u003eThe \"Blasting Annihilating Light\" of Flannery O'Connor's Art   17\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e2 \u003c\/b\u003eDisorientation and Reorientation in J. F. Powers's Fiction   34\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e3 \u003c\/b\u003eWalker Percy and the End of the Modern World   53\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e4 \u003c\/b\u003eTim Gautreaux and a Postconciliar Approach to Violence   73\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e5 \u003c\/b\u003eBelief and Ambiguity in the Fiction of Alice McDermott   92\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e6 \u003c\/b\u003e\"Life Is Rough and Death Is Coming\": George Saunders and the Catholic Literary Tradition   112\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eEpilogue\u003c\/b\u003e: Phil Klay, Kirstin Valdez Quade, and the State of Contemporary Catholic Literature   133\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAcknowledgments \u003c\/i\u003e  147\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eNotes \u003c\/i\u003e  151\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWorks Cited\u003c\/i\u003e   165\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eIndex \u003c\/i\u003e  173\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Fordham University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52619264622872,"sku":"9781531503451","price":63.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/startling-figures-encounters-with-american-catholic-fiction-hardback-9781531503451","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}