More Lights Than One: On the Fiction of Fred Chappell

Fred Chappell belongs to a small company of writers renowned equally for their poetry and their prose fiction. In American literature, only Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Penn Warren have won acclaim in both genres. Chappell's fictional work ranges from realism to fantasy and is startling in its documentary detail, often biting in its ever-present humanity, and consistently humorous. This new volume presents a superb assemblage of commentators who cast light on Chappell's remarkable artistry. They make clear why - from It Is Time, Lord to Look Back All the Green Valley - the fictional oeuvre of this western North Carolina author has won the hearts of readers and the praises of critics. Contributors include R. H. W. Dillard, Kelly Cherry, George Hovis, Shelby Stephenson, Patrick Bizzaro, J. Spencer Edmunds, Rebecca Smith, Traci Lazenby, Rosemary Cox, Peter Makuck, Warren Rochelle, John Lang, Karen Janet McKinney, and James W. Kirkland. Under their interpretive gaze, all of Chappell's work shows a concern with the relationship between the spiritual and material in people's lives, the moral development of the human race, and the flawed, enigmatic, and yet enlightening interaction between