Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit: Books from the 1950s That Made American Culture

New
Paperback
2004
$35.18

From the late 1940s through the JFK years, America was the home office of literary innovation. Writers forged new styles with the rapidly changing times, and generated new ideas that fit the challenges of late modernity. Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit shows how particular landmark books took on the hot-button subjects of the 1950s: race and religious difference; social class and the suburbs; the youth culture; conformity and group think; and much else.

Synopsis

From the late 1940s through the JFK years, America was the home office of literary innovation. Writers forged new styles with the rapidly changing times, and generated new ideas that fit the challenges of late modernity. Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit shows how particular landmark books took on the hot-button subjects of the 1950s: race and religious difference; social class and the suburbs; the youth culture; conformity and group think; and much else.

$35.18

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 210
Edition: New
Publisher: Continuum
Published: 01 Sep 2004
ISBN 10: 0826417663
ISBN 13: 9780826417664

Media Reviews

'Castronovo writes with an easy confidence that makes his journey to the heart of the 1950s both enlightening and engaging. His prose style has the light touch of the literary journalist, together with the breadth and discrimination of the scholar. In this respect he reminds us of his master - Edmund Wilson, on whom he is an authority....Make no mistake, Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit is a keenly observed and exhilarating work'. America 'The 1950s were as important to American literature as the mid-nineteenth century and the jazz-age 1920s Castronovo contends...Top-drawer literary cultural criticism'. Booklist 'The writing is scholarly yet accessible to the educated lay reader. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Library Journal 'Castronovo is an astute, blunt, erudite critic; he is enthusiastic, not jargonistic, and manages to make many of the classic books of the 1950s - the ones most English majors know - seem relevant and fresh'. The Weekly Standard

Author Bio

David Castronovo is the author of Edmund Wilson, a New York Times Notable Book, as well as studies of Thornton Wilder, the English Gentleman, and the American Gentleman - all published by Continuum. His reviews have appeared in America, Commonweal, Shofar, Forward, and New England Review. Castronovo is Professor of English at Pace University and lives in New York City.