Grace Paley Summary

Everything you need to understand or teach Grace Paley.

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3 Biography
1 Encyclopedia Article
29 Literature Criticism
...and more

Study Pack

The Grace Paley Study Pack contains about 341 pages of study material in 33 products, including:

Encyclopedia Articles (1)

Paley, Grace (1922—)

292 words, approx. 1 pages

Paley, Grace (1922—) With the publication in 1959 of the first of three short story collections, The Little Disturbances of Man: Stories of Women and Men at Love, Grace Paley, at the age of 37,... Read more

Biography (3)

Grace Paley

1,897 words, approx. 7 pages

The American writer Grace Paley (born 1922) is best known for her three collections of short stories, The Little Disturbances of Man (1959), Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974), and Later the S... Read more

Grace Paley

4,543 words, approx. 16 pages

Grace Paley's short stories are vivid examples of twentieth-century American local color and regional sensibility. Populated by many a hue and caste of New York citizen and narrated in a supple, percu... Read more

Grace Paley

7,509 words, approx. 26 pages

Few other fiction writers in late twentieth-century American letters have had so great an influence as Grace Paley on the basis of so few books in a lifetime of work. Even fewer fiction writers--one t... Read more

Essays & Analysis (29)

Interview by Grace Paley with Wendy Smith

2,184 words, approx. 8 pages

In the following interview, Paley comments on her upbringing, her fiction, the rewards of parenthood, and the value of community participation and political action. Grace Paley has been a respected na... Read more

Critical Review by Frances Taliaferro

867 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review, Taliaferro offers praise for Later the Same Day. There aren’t enough books by Grace Paley in the world, so a new one is cause for great rejoicing. In The Little Disturb... Read more

Critical Review by Robert B. Shaw

373 words, approx. 2 pages

In the following review, Shaw offers a positive assessment of Paley's verse in Leaning Forward, but notes that Paley's fiction is more accomplished. I doubt that Grace Paley’s rep... Read more

Critical Review by Rita D. Jacobs

400 words, approx. 2 pages

In the following review, Jacobs offers a positive assessment of Later the Same Day. With narrative skill and sharp characterizations, Grace Paley deftly details the phenomena of our everyday lives. Ea... Read more

Critical Essay by Alan Wilde

7,477 words, approx. 25 pages

In the following essay, Wilde argues that Paley's fiction is neither realist nor strictly metafictional. According to Wilde, Paley's “midfictional” style embodies elements ... Read more

Interview by Grace Paley with Eleanor Wachtel

3,539 words, approx. 12 pages

The following interview was originally conducted with Paley in 1988, and was originally published in The Brick Reader, edited by Linda Spalding and Michael Ondaatje, 1991. In the interview Paley discu... Read more

Critical Essay by Victoria Aarons

4,377 words, approx. 15 pages

In the following essay, Aarons examines the importance of personal storytelling and oral narrative in Paley's fiction, noting its relationship to Jewish literary tradition. Aarons contends that... Read more

Critical Essay by Jacqueline Taylor

3,487 words, approx. 12 pages

In the following essay, Taylor examines Paley's shrewd critique of male-dominated language which demeans and dismisses women. Taylor draws attention to deliberately awkward and ironic exchanges... Read more

Critical Essay by Jacqueline Taylor

9,046 words, approx. 31 pages

In the following essay, Taylor discusses cultural stereotypes about women and humor, and examines the use of comic wit in Paley's fiction. Taylor contends that Paley's subversive humor&#... Read more

Interview by Grace Paley with Shirley M. Jordan

5,714 words, approx. 20 pages

The following interview was originally conducted in 1991, and was originally published in Broken Silences (1993), edited by Shirley M. Jordan. In the interview, Jordan and Paley discuss Paley's... Read more

Critical Review by Enid Dame

707 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following excerpted review, Dame offers a positive assessment of Long Walks and Intimate Talks. It is refreshing, in these days of mean-spirited attacks on “political correctness,”... Read more

Critical Essay by Hoke Greiner

1,536 words, approx. 6 pages

In the following essay, Greiner examines the reversed chronological ordering of the companion stories “The Used-Boy Raisers” and “A Subject of Childhood.” Greiner draws att... Read more

Interview by Grace Paley with Jonathan Dee, Barbara Jones, and Larissa MacFarquhar

7,485 words, approx. 25 pages

The following interview was conducted by three Paris Review writers. Paley discusses her early transformation as a writer, her fictional style, major influences, personal motivations, and the central ... Read more

Critical Essay by Adam Meyer

5,154 words, approx. 18 pages

In the following essay, Meyer examines Paley's self-conscious exploration of racism in various forms, particularly the naïve and self-righteous variety displayed by well-meaning white ac... Read more

Critical Review by Richard Eder

1,198 words, approx. 4 pages

In the following review of The Collected Stories, Eder offers a positive assessment of Paley's fiction, but notes that the collection contains several unexceptional pieces. Anger does for Grace... Read more

Critical Review by Walter Kirn

1,266 words, approx. 5 pages

In the following review, Kirn comments favorably on Paley's fiction in The Collected Stories, though he notes that some of her later pieces are overly ideological. Grace Paley’s short st... Read more

Critical Review by Charles Baxter

1,026 words, approx. 4 pages

In the following review, Baxter offers a positive evaluation of The Collected Stories. Grace Paley’s stories have achieved something of a cult or classic status, and with good reason. Since the... Read more

Critical Review by Richard Locke

827 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review of Paley's Collected Stories, Locke claims that Paley has positively altered American literature. In the beginning—40 years ago—Grace Paley found a voice a... Read more

Critical Review by Vivian Gornick

1,269 words, approx. 5 pages

In the following excerpt, Gornick recounts her introduction to and admiration for Paley's fiction, and reviews The Collected Stories. I remember the first time I laid eyes on a Paley sentence. ... Read more

Critical Essay by Sanford Pinsker

3,028 words, approx. 11 pages

In the essay below, Pinsker evaluates the central themes and distinct style of Paley's fiction as evident in The Collected Stories. Grace Paley's The Collected Stories is at once a cause... Read more

Interview by Grace Paley with Birgit Fromkorth and Susanne Opfermann

8,060 words, approx. 27 pages

Interview by Grace Paley with Birgit Fromkorth and Susanne Opfermann “Grace Paley,” in American Contradictions: Interviews with Nine American Writers, edited by Wolfgang Binder and Helmb... Read more

Critical Review by Cynthia Tompkins

502 words, approx. 2 pages

In the following review, Tompkins offers a positive assessment of The Collected Stories. Grace Paley dedicates The Collected Stories to her “colleague in the Writing and Mother Trade,” S... Read more

Interview by Grace Paley with Phyllis Vine

3,667 words, approx. 13 pages

In the following interview, Paley discusses her family and formative influences, and her career as a writer and activist. It’s August 6 in Thetford Hill, Vermont, and before the sun has dried t... Read more

Critical Review by Bryan Cheyette

1,738 words, approx. 6 pages

In the following review, Cheyette offers a positive evaluation of The Collected Stories. The forty-five stories in this remarkable collection [The Collected Stories] have been published over the past ... Read more

Critical Review by John Leonard

2,717 words, approx. 10 pages

In the following review of Just As I Thought, Leonard praises Paley's life, activism, and moral conviction. Never mind how wonderful it is that Grace Paley should have imagined an alter ego nam... Read more

Critical Review by Susie Linfield

707 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review of Just As I Thought, Linfield commends Paley's remarkable insight, but finds the collection to be of uneven quality. A critic once compared Grace Paley’s fiction... Read more

Critical Review by Alan Wolfe

4,145 words, approx. 14 pages

In the following negative review of Just As I Thought, Wolfe condemns Paley's “stubborn” activism as hypocritical, dishonest, and, at worst, immoral. As Wolfe concludes, “P... Read more

Critical Review by Margaret Randall

1,330 words, approx. 5 pages

In the following review, Randall offers a positive evaluation of Just As I Thought. Just As I Thought is just the way it was, for Grace Paley and for many others loosely included in her generation. Pa... Read more

Critical Essay by Judie Newman

4,190 words, approx. 14 pages

In the following essay, Newman elucidates Grace Paley's anti-Vietnam politics and discusses the impact of her political views on her short fiction. I object not to facts but to people sitting i... Read more

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