{"id":59447,"date":"2020-06-18T00:16:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T00:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59447"},"modified":"2020-06-18T00:17:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T00:17:42","slug":"rediscovering-frank-yerby-critical-essays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59447","title":{"rendered":"Rediscovering Frank Yerby: Critical Essays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rediscovering Frank Yerby: Critical Essays<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

University Press of Mississippi<\/a>
\n2020-05-15
\n208 pages
\nHardcover ISBN: 9781496827821
\nPaperback ISBN: 9781496827838<\/p>\n

Edited by:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew Teutsch<\/strong><\/a>, Director, Lillian E. Smith Center
\nPiedmont College, Demorest, Georgia<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The first book-length sounding of the major contributions of the first black American novelist to sell more than a million copies<\/em><\/p>\n

Contributions by Catherine L. Adams, Stephanie Brown, Gene Andrew Jarrett, John Wharton Lowe, Guirdex Mass\u00e9, Anderson Rouse, Matthew Teutsch, Donna-lyn Washington, and Veronica T. Watson<\/p>\n

Rediscovering Frank Yerby: Critical Essays<\/em> is the first book-length study of Yerby\u2019s life and work. The collection explores a myriad of topics, including his connections to the Harlem<\/a> and Chicago Renaissances<\/a>; readership and reception; representations of masculinity and patriotism; film adaptations; and engagement with race, identity, and religion. The contributors to this collection work to rectify the misunderstandings of Yerby\u2019s work that have relegated him to the sidelines and, ultimately, begin a reexamination of the importance of \u201cthe prince of pulpsters\u201d in American literature.<\/p>\n

It was Robert Bone<\/a>, in The Negro Novel in America<\/em>, who infamously dismissed Frank Yerby<\/a> (1916\u20131991) as \u201cthe prince of pulpsters. \u201d Like Bone, many literary critics at the time criticized Yerby\u2019s lack of focus on race and the stereotypical treatment of African American characters in his books. This negative labeling continued to stick to Yerby even as he gained critical success, first with The Foxes of Harrow<\/em>, the first novel by an African American to sell more than a million copies, and later as he began to publish more political works like Speak Now<\/em> and The Dahomean<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, the literary community cannot continue to ignore Frank Yerby and his impact on American literature. More than a fiction writer, Yerby should be put in conversation with such contemporaneous writers as Richard Wright, Dorothy West, James Baldwin, William Faulkner, Margaret Mitchell, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first book-length sounding of the major contributions of the first black American novelist to sell more than a million copies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,11,1196,8,20],"tags":[30694,30690,30695,28124,8722,30693,30692,26542,30691,1420,23809],"class_list":["post-59447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthologies","category-books","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-anderson-rouse","tag-catherine-l-adams","tag-donna-lyn-washington","tag-frank-yerby","tag-gene-andrew-jarrett","tag-guirdex-masse","tag-john-wharton-lowe","tag-matthew-teutsch","tag-stephanie-brown","tag-university-press-of-mississippi","tag-veronica-t-watson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59743,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59447\/revisions\/59743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}