Conversations With Grace Paley

by Bach, Gerhard; Hall, Blaine

• ISBN13: 9780878059621
• ISBN10: 0878059628
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-06-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi

Summary

Grace Paley's contribution to American literature, while comparatively small in volume, has been substantial in impact. With a voice very much her own, Paley has been a critical force in post-World War II American culture, particularly at its controversial centers. With The Little Disturbances of Man, Later the Same Day, and Enormous Changes at the Last Minute Paley attracted a significant and admiring following. In this collection of interviews from 1978 to 1995 Paley elaborates on the many forces that have influenced her and her writing. In these conversations she reveals not only her triple lives as writer, mother, and political activist but also her perspectives which over the years have become precise and solid. With authority, distinctness, and relentless honesty she speaks out on contemporary issues. She discusses American conditions at large, particularly those that are being neglected or denied. With firm authority Paley discusses topics of wide range, many of which she describes as personal discoveries. She includes politics and environmentalism, the family and human relationships, the impact of background and education, the moral importance of community, feminism and women's liberation, the sexual self and role enforcement, America's need for communality and women's creative response to it, the art of teaching, and the importance of friendship. Paley's conversations, like her writings, are refreshingly candid and radically different from the contemporary American mainstream. Gerhard Bach is a professor of English at Bremen University, Germany, and an adjunct professor of American Studies at Brigham Young University. Blaine Hall recently retired as English Language and Literature Librarian at Brigham Young University.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chronology
Grace Paley Interview	p. 3
Grace Paley	p. 14
Conversation with Grace Paley	p. 26
Interview with Grace Paley	p. 36
Grace Paley: Fragments for a Portrait in Collage	p. 56
Clearing Her Throat: An Interview with Grace Paley	p. 72
Grace Paley	p. 95
A Conversation with Grace Paley	p. 117
PW Interviews Grace Paley	p. 126
Grace Paley, Voice from the Village	p. 131
Grace Paley: A Conversation	p. 135
Grace Paley Talking with Cora Kaplan	p. 146
An Interview with Grace Paley	p. 153
Grace Paley on Storytelling and Story Hearing	p. 163
An Interview with Grace Paley	p. 177
Looking at Disparities: An Interview with Grace Paley	p. 192
An Interview with Grace Paley	p. 204
Grace Paley	p. 213
Grace Paley	p. 226
Grace Paley: An Interview by Joann Gardner	p. 235
Grace Paley	p. 249
Index	p. 269
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