I Could Tell You Stories

In this timely gathering, Patricia Hampl, one of our most elegant practitioners, "weaves personal stories and grand ideas into shimmering bolts of prose" (Minneapolis Star Tribune) as she explores the autobiographical writing that has enchanted or bedeviled her. Subjects engaging Hampl's attention include her family's response to her writing, the ethics of writing about family and friends, St. Augustine's Confessions, reflections on reading Walt Whitman during the Vietnam War, and an early experience reviewing Sylvia Plath. The word that unites the impulse within all the pieces is "Remember " a command that can be startling. For to remember is to make a pledge: to the indelible experience of personal perception, and to history itself."

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 08/17/2000
ISBN: 9780393320312
Pages: 229
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.60d

Review Citations: New York Times 08/20/2000 pg. 24