One of the most controversial American authors of the twentieth century, Truman Capote is best known as the author of In Cold Blood (1966), a work of literary journalism that recounts the slaughter of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. But he also wrote numerous short stories, dozens of nonfiction pieces for popular magazines, several other novels, and some works for Hollywood and Broadway. Unlike In Cold Blood, many of his earlier works were criticized for their focus on character at a time when other writers were using fiction to explore historical events and social and political positions. Since his death in 1984, scholarly interest in Capote and his works has grown considerably. Over the last few decades, the reaction to his works has been rich and varied. This volume chronicles the critical reception to Capote's writings.Included are previously published reviews and essays, along with several pieces written especially for this book. The selections are grouped in several broad sections, which examine such topics as overviews and interviews, the genres in which he wrote, and his particular works, his literary documentaries, and his relation to other writers and critics. Each section is organized chronologically and traces not only the development of Capote's talents but also the evolution of critical attitudes toward his works. Both favorable and unfavorable analyses by commentators and scholars such as Ihab Hassan, George Jean Nathan, Leslie Fiedler, Diana Trilling, Kenneth Tynan, and many others provide a balanced view of Capote's writings. A comprehensive introduction covers the materials included in the book along with many other relevant texts, and extensive bibliographic material records the present state of Capote scholarship.

The metaphor of the Church as a "body" has shaped Catholic thinking since the Second Vatican Council. Its influence on theological inquiries into Catholic nature and practice is well-known; less obvious is the way it has shaped a generation of Catholic imaginative writers. Cathedrals of Bone is the first full-length study of a cohort of Catholic authors whose art takes seriously the themes of the Council: from novelists such as Mary Gordon, Ron Hansen, Louise Erdrich, and J. F. Powers, to poets such as Annie Dillard, Mary Karr, Lucia Perillo, and Anne Carson, to the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley. Motivated by the inspirational yet thoroughly incarnational rhetoric of Vatican II, each of these writers encourages readers to think about the human body as a site-perhaps the most important site-of interaction between God and human beings. Although they represent the body in different ways, these late-twentieth-century Catholic artists share a sense of its inherent value. Moreover, they use ideas and terminology from the rich tradition of Catholic sacramentality, especially as it was articulated in the documents of Vatican II, to describe that value. In this way they challenge the Church to take its own tradition seriously and to reconsider its relationship to a relatively recent apologetics that has emphasized a narrow view of human reason and a rigid sense of orthodoxy.

One of the most controversial American authors of the twentieth century, Truman Capote is best known as the author of In Cold Blood (1966), a work of literary journalism that recounts the slaughter of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. But he also wrote numerous short stories, dozens of nonfiction pieces for popular magazines, several other novels, and some works for Hollywood and Broadway. Unlike In Cold Blood, many of his earlier works were criticized for their focus on character at a time when other writers were using fiction to explore historical events and social and political positions. Since his death in 1984, scholarly interest in Capote and his works has grown considerably. Over the last few decades, the reaction to his works has been rich and varied. This volume chronicles the critical reception to Capote's writings.Included are previously published reviews and essays, along with several pieces written especially for this book. The selections are grouped in several broad sections, which examine such topics as overviews and interviews, the genres in which he wrote, and his particular works, his literary documentaries, and his relation to other writers and critics. Each section is organized chronologically and traces not only the development of Capote's talents but also the evolution of critical attitudes toward his works. Both favorable and unfavorable analyses by commentators and scholars such as Ihab Hassan, George Jean Nathan, Leslie Fiedler, Diana Trilling, Kenneth Tynan, and many others provide a balanced view of Capote's writings. A comprehensive introduction covers the materials included in the book along with many other relevant texts, and extensive bibliographic material records the present state of Capote scholarship.

The metaphor of the Church as a "body" has shaped Catholic thinking since the Second Vatican Council. Its influence on theological inquiries into Catholic nature and practice is well-known; less obvious is the way it has shaped a generation of Catholic imaginative writers. Cathedrals of Bone is the first full-length study of a cohort of Catholic authors whose art takes seriously the themes of the Council: from novelists such as Mary Gordon, Ron Hansen, Louise Erdrich, and J. F. Powers, to poets such as Annie Dillard, Mary Karr, Lucia Perillo, and Anne Carson, to the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley. Motivated by the inspirational yet thoroughly incarnational rhetoric of Vatican II, each of these writers encourages readers to think about the human body as a site-perhaps the most important site-of interaction between God and human beings. Although they represent the body in different ways, these late-twentieth-century Catholic artists share a sense of its inherent value. Moreover, they use ideas and terminology from the rich tradition of Catholic sacramentality, especially as it was articulated in the documents of Vatican II, to describe that value. In this way they challenge the Church to take its own tradition seriously and to reconsider its relationship to a relatively recent apologetics that has emphasized a narrow view of human reason and a rigid sense of orthodoxy.