American Identities: Contemporary Multicultural Voices

by Pack, Robert; Parini, Jay

• ISBN13: 9780874517590
• ISBN10: 0874517591
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-03-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of New England

Summary

More than three dozen voices offer diverse expressions of the dynamic interaction between subculture & the American consciousness, & many answers to the question of how to construct a self from the materials of life in our contentious & often incoherent culture.

Author Biography

College Professor of Literature at Middlebury College, ROBERT PACK's numerous books include Fathering the Map (1993) and The Long View (1991). JAY PARINI, Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury, is editor of The Columbia History of American Poetry (1993) and author of John Steinbeck: A Biography (1995) and many other books.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Homecoming	p. 1
Queens, 1963	p. 2
Chicago Highbrow	p. 5
Bank Examiners	p. 25
A Late Start in Mississippi	p. 29
Advanced Biology	p. 35
Hudson Hornet	p. 43
Maternity	p. 44
Translations	p. 45
Times Square Hotel - Basement Floor	p. 46
First Baptist Church: Princeton New Jersey	p. 48
The Boy with Beer	p. 49
Home	p. 58
Conversions	p. 66
Kubota	p. 71
Reconstruction	p. 81
How I Got to Be Jewish	p. 90
Monticello	p. 100
Rendezvous	p. 101
Anthony, Isabella ...	p. 104
Henry the Navigator	p. 105
Other Worlds	p. 106
Prague: A Poem Reappearing	p. 107
Empty Bamboo	p. 115
Voice Lessons	p. 123
The Gospel According to Walter	p. 135
Fog Warning	p. 136
The Conning Towers of My Father's War	p. 137
Class	p. 139
South Bronx, 1939	p. 151
Clayfield Prunes His Apple Trees	p. 152
Anthracite Country	p. 155
Playing in the Mines	p. 155
1913	p. 156
The Miner's Wake	p. 157
Coal Train	p. 157
Grudnow	p. 159
It Is Raining on the House of Anne Frank	p. 160
A Real Story	p. 160
Rachel (a ewe)	p. 161
A Short History of Judaic Thought in the Twentieth Century	p. 162
A Secret Place, with View	p. 163
Gathering	p. 172
Losing the Aristocratic Taint	p. 182
A New England Chorus	p. 187
Ear Training	p. 197
History (with Dreams)	p. 211
Distant Cousins	p. 223
Family Values	p. 229
Chrysanthemums	p. 236
Ningyo	p. 238
Rat Bohemia	p. 240
Being There	p. 247
One Last Time	p. 269
Idlewild	p. 277
Between Silence and Sanction	p. 298
The Italian-American Voice: Where Is It?	p. 311
West Point	p. 322
White Pelicans	p. 335
Today, a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket	p. 343
Autobiography of a Family Photo	p. 348
Virgin River Bride	p. 358
June Elegy	p. 359
Skull	p. 361
Swallows of Xi'an	p. 362
Contributors	p. 365
Acknowledgments	p. 371
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.