books
imitations of life fannie hursts gaslight sonatas
p in the early 1920s fannie hursts enormous popularity made her the highest paid writer in america . she conquered the literary scene at the same time the silent movie industry began to emerge as a tremendously profitable and popular form of entertainment . abe c. ravitz parallels hursts growing acclaim with the evolution of silent films from which she borrowed ideas and techniques that furthered her career . ravitz notes that hurst was amazingly adept at anticipating what the public wanted . sensing that the national interest was shifting from rural to urban subjects hurst set her immigrant tales and her woiking goil tales in urban america . in her early stories she tried to bridge the gap between old world and new world citizens each somewhat fearful and suspicious of the other . she wrote of love and ethnicity bringing the jewish mother to prominence of race relations and prejudice of the woman alone in her quest for selfhood . ravitz argues in fact that her socially oriented tales and her portraits of women in the city clearly identify her as a forerunner of contemporary feminism . p ravitz brings to life the popular culture from 1910 through the 1920s tracing the meteoric rise of hurst and depicting the colorful cast of characters surrounding her . he reproduces for the first time the hurst correspondence with theodore dreiser charles and kathleen norris and gertrude atherton . fellow writers rex beach and vachel lindsay also play important roles in ravitzs portrait of hurst as does zora neale hurston who awakened hursts interest in the harlem renaissance and in race relations as shown in hursts novel imitation of life .
paperback southern illinois university press 2009 isbn13 9780809329083 isbn10 0809329085
abridged n isbn 13 9780809329083 number in series 1 number of pages 202 publisher southern illinois university press release date 62135769600000