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Hortense Calisher.
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In a career of nearly six decades, novelist and short-story writer Hortense Calisher has produced an impressive body of work--six books of stories and novellas, fourteen novels, and two memoirs--and h...
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Hortense Calisher was born in New York City on 20 December 1911, the child of Joseph Henry Calisher and Hedwig Lichstern Calisher; they were a comfortable, middle-class Jewish family. Her father was a...
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In the following excerpt, Johnson offers praise for False Entry.
Hortense Calisher’s False Entry is an immensely accomplished and fascinating first novel, one that, through both its ornate styl...
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In the following review, Yuenger offers a positive evaluation of Age.
For more than 40 years, Hortense Calisher’s pen has served as a scalpel slicing through to the emotional underside of Ameri...
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In the following review, Drake offers an unfavorable assessment of Age.
What to make of this slender novel/novella by Hortense Calisher? It is as fragile and paradoxical as the state of its protagonis...
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In the following excerpt, Bader offers a tempered assessment of Age.
“I suppose most couples the age of Rupert and me are not expected to be still compelled by sex,” writes Hortense Cali...
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In the following essay, Snodgrass examines the related themes in Textures of Life, Queenie, and Eagle Eye, drawing attention to the movement from ideal to real and symbolic to literal in each.
Like ma...
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In the following review, Krim offers a favorable evaluation of Kissing Cousins.
Any writer who asks to review a new Hortense Calisher has obviously got big self-destruction problems. This latest Kissi...
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In the following essay, Snodgrass examines Calisher's authorial perspective and trademark prose style, drawing attention to the opposing aspects of “old world” realism and modern ...
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In the following review, See offers a tempered assessment of In the Palace of the Movie King, noting a lack of plot or progression in the book.
Reading In the Palace of the Movie King is like doggedly...
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In the following review, Malin comments on Calisher's prose style and offers a positive assessment of In the Palace of the Movie King.
Calisher has not received the critical attention she deser...
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In the following review, Snodgrass offers a favorable evaluation of In the Palace of the Movie King.
Paul Gonchev, the hero of Hortense Calisher’s twelfth novel, In the Palace of the Movie King...
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In the following review, King offers a favorable assessment of Age.
A past president of the American PEN Center and of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and a recipient of a life...
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In the following excerpt, Kiely commends Calisher's prose in Textures of Life, though finds fault in her generalizations about women.
To read the newly published novels of Hortense Calisher and...
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In the following review, Allen provides an overview of Calisher's literary career and offers a positive evaluation of In the Slammer and The Novellas of Hortense Calisher.
Hortense Calisher, wh...
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In the following essay, Hahn discusses Calisher's prose style, early fiction, and formative experiences, and the critical response to False Entry and Textures of Life.
“Words are our ref...
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In the following review, Tyler offers a favorable evaluation of The Collected Stories of Hortense Calisher.
Hortense Calisher has written, at one time or another, from the viewpoint of a young girl re...
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In the following review, Piercy offers a positive assessment of Mysteries of Motion.
Hortense Calisher’s ninth novel, Mysteries of Motion, takes large chances under which its structure and its ...
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In the following review, Kendall offers a favorable assessment of Calisher's stories in Saratoga, Hot.
“Some stories cling to the pen as novels do,” Hortense Calisher has said, tr...
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In the following interview, Calisher discusses her approach to writing, her prose style, the transition between writing short fiction and novels, and her interest in space travel and transportation.
W...
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In the following review, Cavell offers a generally positive assessment of The Bobby-Soxer, though she finds shortcomings in the disorienting quality of the writing.
The themes of Hortense Calisher...
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In the following interview, Calisher discusses her early life, diverse family influences, literary beginnings, and the themes, preoccupations, and creative processes behind her writing.
Hortense Calis...
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Hortense Calisher
Critical Review by Lucy Johnson
