Understanding Alice Adams
- South Carolina The University of South Carolina Press 2019
- 132
An illuminating study of an award-winning writer who captured the complex challenges twentieth-century women faced in their struggle for independence.
In Understanding Alice Adams, Bryant Mangum examines the thematic intricacies and astute social commentary of Adams’s eleven novels and five short story collections. Throughout her career Adams was known for creating and re-creating the “Alice Adams woman,” who is bright, honest, attractive, thoughtful―and sometimes a bit offbeat. As Mangum notes, Adams’s central characters―her heroes―are most often women struggling toward self-sufficiency and independence as they strive to fulfill their responsibilities, including child rearing and other societal commitments.