Thomas J. Ferraro is Professor of English at Duke University. He writes on literature, film, and the performing arts, and is the author of Feeling Italian: The Art of Ethnicity in America (NYU, 2005), Ethnic Passages: Literary Immigrants in 20th-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 1993), the editor of Catholic Lives, Contemporary America (Duke University Press, 1997), and a contributor to The Columbia History of the American Novel, Scribner's Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature.

There are academic books that spur readers to think about and look at literary works from an 'ex-centric' standpoint with regards to the established theoretical framework that surrounds them. These are also the books that compel us to go back to those novels, poems, stories as slow readers, searching for clues and tunes we might have not considered previously ... Thomas J. Ferraro's Transgression and Redemption in American Fiction is one of those books, and its flamboyant and beautifully crafted cover immediately alerts readers to its unorthodox and thought provoking content, leading them to a journey across modern US fiction as seen through the lens of Marian Catholicism.

• Introduction: Towards a Marian-Catholic Pedagogy of Classic American Novels 1: Had there been a Papist: Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter 2: Of Lascivious Mysticism and Other Hibernian Matters : Frederic''s The Damnation of Theron Ware 3: Vouchsafed by the Holy Ghost: Chopin's The Awakening 4: Densher's Crucifixion--or A Beautiful, Beneficent Dishonesty?: James' The Wings of the Dove 5: Our Lady of Art: Cather's "Coming Aphrodite"! 6: The Carrawat Confessional: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby 7: No Forgiveness in Heaven, No Forgetting in Hell: Cather's The Professor's House 8: Feast of Our Lady of Desire, Resplendent: Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises 9: Coda

Thomas J. Ferraro is Professor of English at Duke University. He writes on literature, film, and the performing arts, and is the author of Feeling Italian: The Art of Ethnicity in America (NYU, 2005), Ethnic Passages: Literary Immigrants in 20th-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 1993), the editor of Catholic Lives, Contemporary America (Duke University Press, 1997), and a contributor to The Columbia History of the American Novel, Scribner's Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature.

There are academic books that spur readers to think about and look at literary works from an 'ex-centric' standpoint with regards to the established theoretical framework that surrounds them. These are also the books that compel us to go back to those novels, poems, stories as slow readers, searching for clues and tunes we might have not considered previously ... Thomas J. Ferraro's Transgression and Redemption in American Fiction is one of those books, and its flamboyant and beautifully crafted cover immediately alerts readers to its unorthodox and thought provoking content, leading them to a journey across modern US fiction as seen through the lens of Marian Catholicism.

• Introduction: Towards a Marian-Catholic Pedagogy of Classic American Novels 1: Had there been a Papist: Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter 2: Of Lascivious Mysticism and Other Hibernian Matters : Frederic''s The Damnation of Theron Ware 3: Vouchsafed by the Holy Ghost: Chopin's The Awakening 4: Densher's Crucifixion--or A Beautiful, Beneficent Dishonesty?: James' The Wings of the Dove 5: Our Lady of Art: Cather's "Coming Aphrodite"! 6: The Carrawat Confessional: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby 7: No Forgiveness in Heaven, No Forgetting in Hell: Cather's The Professor's House 8: Feast of Our Lady of Desire, Resplendent: Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises 9: Coda

Thomas J. Ferraro is Professor of English at Duke University. He writes on literature, film, and the performing arts, and is the author of Feeling Italian: The Art of Ethnicity in America (NYU, 2005), Ethnic Passages: Literary Immigrants in 20th-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 1993), the editor of Catholic Lives, Contemporary America (Duke University Press, 1997), and a contributor to The Columbia History of the American Novel, Scribner's Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature.

There are academic books that spur readers to think about and look at literary works from an 'ex-centric' standpoint with regards to the established theoretical framework that surrounds them. These are also the books that compel us to go back to those novels, poems, stories as slow readers, searching for clues and tunes we might have not considered previously ... Thomas J. Ferraro's Transgression and Redemption in American Fiction is one of those books, and its flamboyant and beautifully crafted cover immediately alerts readers to its unorthodox and thought provoking content, leading them to a journey across modern US fiction as seen through the lens of Marian Catholicism.

• Introduction: Towards a Marian-Catholic Pedagogy of Classic American Novels 1: Had there been a Papist: Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter 2: Of Lascivious Mysticism and Other Hibernian Matters : Frederic''s The Damnation of Theron Ware 3: Vouchsafed by the Holy Ghost: Chopin's The Awakening 4: Densher's Crucifixion--or A Beautiful, Beneficent Dishonesty?: James' The Wings of the Dove 5: Our Lady of Art: Cather's "Coming Aphrodite"! 6: The Carrawat Confessional: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby 7: No Forgiveness in Heaven, No Forgetting in Hell: Cather's The Professor's House 8: Feast of Our Lady of Desire, Resplendent: Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises 9: Coda