Fabricating Lives: Explorations in American AutobiographyLong fascinated by the "renegade power" of autobiography and by "its multiple forms of self-disclosure and self-concealment," Herbert Leibowitz explores his lifelong interest in Fabricating Lives. A lively and original study of eight American autobiographers, the book examines the problem posed by an art where craftiness is hand in glove with craft: after all, a memoirist wants us to perceive him in a certain way; how do we penetrate his strategies and subterfuges? "The self," Leibowitz answers, "reveals itself through style." To discover the human essence of his subjects, he scrutinizes their styles (including Benjamin Franklin's plain talk and "possum's wit," Gertrude Stein's "gossipy ventriloquism," and William Carlos Williams' "grumpy clowning" and foxy innocence), looking beyond their visions of themselves to their true identities. |
Contents
Style and Autobiography | 3 |
The Autobiography | 29 |
Jane Addamss | 115 |
Emma Goldmans | 157 |
Gertrude Steins | 197 |
The Autobiography | 229 |
Richard Wrights | 269 |
Edward Dahlbergs | 307 |
Notes | 329 |
Selected Bibliography | 367 |
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Common terms and phrases
Addams's Alexander Berkman American Hunger anarchists architecture artistic authority Autobiography of Alice beauty Benjamin Franklin Black Boy Chicago child childhood consciousness culture death democratic Douglass dream early Edward Dahlberg Emma Goldman emotional essay experience eyes faith father fear feelings felt Flesh Frank Lloyd Frank Lloyd Wright Gertrude Stein girl heart Henry Hull-House human Ibid ideal ideas identity imagination immigrant James Jane Addams John language letter Library of America literary Living Lizzie looked Louis Sullivan memory mind moral mother narrative nature never painting Paris passion person phrase poem poet political poor Pound prose Puritan reader rhythm Richard Richard Wright says seems sense sentences sexual social society soul spirit street style thing Thomson thought tion Toklas University Press Virgil Thomson voice Vollard William Carlos Williams Williams's woman women words Wright writing York young