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Jean Stafford.
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Jean Stafford has defined the role of the novelist as that of telling the truth: "the problem is how to tell the truth so persuasively and vividly that our readers are taken in and made to believe th...
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Jean Wilson Stafford, a brilliant practitioner of the craft of fiction, has few equals among the post-World War II generation of novelists and short-story writers who worked within the literary modes ...
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In the following review, Jones finds the stories in Children Are Bored on Sunday masterfully written, but sometimes to a fault
Of the extraordinary ability of Jean Stafford as an imaginative writer t...
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In the following essay, Oates finds Stafford's style conventional but concedes that many of her short stories are powerful and terrifying.
Certainly [Stafford's] stories are exquisitely ...
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In this essay, Walsh examines the role of women and girls in the western stories in The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford.
In the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, Staffo...
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In this essay, Leary relates Stafford's personal experiences, particularly her tempestuous relationship with husband Robert Lowell, to the short story "The Interior Castle, " stat...
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In the following excerpt, Walsh examines Stafford's depiction of older, mature women in her short fiction.
The fiction that portrays maturing women, women married, widowed, divorced, or alone b...
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In this essay, Leary relates the story "A Slight Maneuver" to the break-up of Stafford's marriage to Robert Lowell.
During the waning days of 1946, Jean Stafford's life mus...
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In the following essay, Ryan discusses Stafford's depiction of women and children in her short fiction.
As her novels and stories indicate, in technique as well as theme, Jean Stafford is inte...
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In this excerpt, Bawer places Stafford's short fiction in a genre he calls "New Yorker stories. "
Stafford continued to write short stories well into the mid-Sixties. Indeed, as h...
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In the following essay, D'Erasmo gives an overview of Stafford's career, providing insights into why she stopped writing .
In one of Jean Stafford's most famous stories, "T...
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Peden is an American writer, critic, and educator. In this review of Children Are Bored on Sunday, he finds the stories beautiful, sad, and complex.
To paraphrase a comment once made by James Branch C...
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In the following essay, which focuses on three of Stafford's novels and many of her short stories, Vickery examines how Stafford's integration of psychological, humanistic, and Christian...
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In this review of Bad Characters, Perry finds Stafford's villains enthralling but notes that a "nagging, sometimes boring, similarity surrounds her 'good' characters....
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In the following review of Bad Characters, Tracy calls Stafford a "brilliant writer" but finds some of the stories in the volume too contrived.
There was a day when story-tellers could ...
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In this favorable review of Bad Characters, Curley praises Stafford's characterization and narrative technique.
I don't intend faint praise by saying that it's always a pleasure ...
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In the review below, Davenport discusses the major themes in The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, focusing on her portrayal of American women.
By all rights, Jean Stafford says in her introduction...
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In the following review of The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, Dickstein compares Stafford's style and themes to those of American writer Henry James.
To do justice to the stories of Jean S...
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Below, Malin examines three of Stafford's short stories, noting that her "poised, beautiful style" is a "perfect frame . . . for the hideous withdrawals, self-deceptions, a...
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Critical Essay by Arthur Voss
[Jean Stafford] combines an intellectuality somewhat similar to that of Mary McCarthy with a sensitivity and a style reminiscent of Katherine Anne Porter. She has publish...
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Critical Essay by Joyce Carol Oates
Certainly the stories [of Jean Stafford] are exquisitely wrought, sensitively imagined like glass flowers, or arabesques, or the 'interior castle' of ...
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Critical Essay by Book World—the Washington Post
What strikes one first in a Stafford story is the language—exact (though sometimes unusual), correct, extremely controlled. The tone is c...
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Critical Essay by Brad Leithauser
What makes [Jean Stafford's] work so rewarding is in part her flair for the particular, the vivid detail…. Stafford's dialogue often shows a quir...
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Critical Essay by Phoebe-lou Adams
A sense of life's disappointments is everywhere felt in [the Collected Stories of Jean Stafford], which often have autobiographical overtones.
Although they s...
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Jean Stafford
Critical Review by Howard Mumford Jones
