Even before the publication of The Public Burning (1977) made him famous, Robert Coover had already achieved a solid reputation, mostly among academics and college audiences, as one of the most origi...
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Robert Coover is one of America's most distinguished writers. His eminence is to be measured not by the size of his current readership, which remains select, but in terms of the technical resourcefuln...
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Critical Essay by Susan Kissel
[In the story "The Hat Act," the] metaphor of the failing magician is a powerful one through which Coover suggests both the comedy of the artist's p...
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Hume is an American educator and critic. In the following excerpt, she defends Coover against charges of pitilessness and sadism, and argues that Coover's fiction demonstrates the interconnecte...
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In the following, Horvath offers a favorable review of Pinocchio in Venice.
I'm afraid I know how we may soon hear Pinocchio in Venice described: as tour-de-force postmodern intertextuality and...
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In the following review, Montrose faults Gerald's Party for being uninspired and for failing to attain Coover's "usual standard of excellence."
Robert Coover on the Evoluti...
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In the following excerpt, Semrau cites The Origin of the Brunists, The Public Burning, and The Universal Baseball Association as examples of Coover's "musicalization of literature....
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In the following excerpt, Ames discusses the variety of narrative codes in Gerald's Party, including "the patterns of detective story, slapstick comedy, masquerade, dream tale, and ritua...
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Markey is an educator. In the review below, she offers a favorable assessment of Pinocchio in Venice.
Hide your eyes Walt Disney fans. Here comes a scary sequel to Pinocchio designed to squash the lif...
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An American critic, Eder received the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and a 1987 citation for excellence in reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle. In the following, he provides a mixed rev...
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In the following favorable review of Pinocchio in Venice, Sage praises the novel's humor, brilliance, and intensity.
In 1985 Cardinal Biffi, the Archbishop of Bologna, wrote a theological comme...
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Critical Essay by Peter S. Prescott
Like a child who pats a pile of wet sand into turrets and crenelated ramparts, Robert Coover prods at our most banal distractions and vulgar obsessions, nudging the...
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Critical Essay by George Leonard
Denis Johnston wrote of Samuel Beckett that his works were "algebraic, in that his characters have the quality of X. And what X means, depends not upon him, but...
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Critical Essay by John O'brien
[Spanking the Maid] is a failed attempt to employ the methods of the nouveau roman; the repetitions, the variations upon images, the structural loops, the shifts ...
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Critical Essay by Larry Mccaffery
[The] fiction of Robert Coover is tightly unified by its metafictional impulses. In examining the concept of man-as-fiction-maker, nearly all of Coover's works...
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Critical Essay by John Brosnahan
[In Bed One Night & Other Brief Encounters includes short] takes displaying Coover's prodigious literary technique. A conventioneer's high jinks in a...
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Critical Essay by Caryn James
Robert Coover's stories are mind games with a heart. In Bed One Night and Other Brief Encounters humanizes language games and literary theorizing, and, remarkably,...
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Critical Essay by B. H. Fussell
Parodic language is Coover's meat and potatoes. Words are where the action is and what the action is, so much so that the pieces [in A Theological Position] seem...
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Critical Essay by Robert Scholes
Metafiction assimilates all the perspectives of criticism into the fictional process itself. It may emphasize structural, formal, behavioral, or philosophical qualitie...
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Critical Essay by Kirkus Reviews
"The Cat in the Hat for President": that was the title of this satire [A Political Fable] when first published in 1968 (in the literary magazine New Amer...
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Critical Essay by Jerome Klinkowitz
If the Cat in the Hat were to publish novels for adults, they would probably read like the works of Robert Coover. A magician with both words and circumstances, Coo...
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Critical Essay by Carole Cook
[A Political Fable] is not exactly a new book. In fact, it is stretching things to resurrect in hardcover a short story that, when published in New American Review No. 4 ...
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Critical Essay by Charla Gabert
Charlie in the House of Rue is a miniature tragicomedy which takes as its point of departure the character and conventions of a Charlie Chaplin film. The leading charac...
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Critical Essay by Richard Andersen
Coover's fictions clearly emphasize their author's interest in providing his readers with the kinds of metaphors that are necessary for a healthy imagi...
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Critical Essay by Jon Zonderman
Robert Coover has turned Chaplin on his head. In Charlie in the House of Rue Coover has placed the Little Tramp in a house where his timing, no matter how perfect, can ...
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In the following review, Brzezinski offers a positive assessment of John's Wife.
Coover, one of America's most celebrated novelists and the leading practitioner of postmodernist fiction,...
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In the following review, McLaughlin praises John's Wife, calling the novel “funny, moving, shocking, revealing, thought-provoking.”
Over a thirty-year career, Robert Coover has gi...
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In the following excerpt, Wood offers a positive assessment of John's Wife.
What's a tour de force? A show of strength, with an emphasis on the show, the performance, the bedazzlement. T...
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In the following review of Briar Rose, Upchurch praises the novel, though notes that Coover's “manneristic flourishes and acrobatic syntax” will make the work inaccessible to some...
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In the following review, Bronson criticizes Coover's weak characterization and loose plotting in John's Wife.
With the opening line of Robert Coover's latest novel, “Once, ...
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In the following positive review, McLaughlin compliments Briar Rose, calling it a “classic by a contemporary master.”
Last year, Robert Coover marked the thirtieth anniversary of his fir...
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In the following excerpt, Bell offers a generally positive assessment of Briar Rose.
“What's the story, Wishbone?” the song asks the fox terrier as though even a dog in a PBS chil...
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In the following negative review, Davis criticizes Coover's prose in Ghost Town.
Like Mel Brooks, Robert Coover relies heavily upon pastiche and parody, but his attempt at a western is in quali...
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In the following review, McLaughlin provides a positive assessment of Ghost Town, commenting that Coover “has hit his target with brilliant force.”
Throughout his career, Robert Coover h...
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In the following excerpt, Kearns offers a negative assessment of Pinocchio in Venice.
Would there were some text-specific Lethe-water one could swallow after reading Robert Coover's Pinocchio i...
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In the following essay, Seaboyer locates Pinocchio in Venice within a tradition of literary works about Venice and examines the novel's intertextual references and philosophical discourse, incl...
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In the following essay, Joris examines Coover's metafictional approach to literature and his affinity for cinematic technique, as demonstrated by the title story of A Night at the Movies.
I ten...
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In the following essay, Frick offers a critical reevaluation of Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears?, which he considers an underappreciated achievement that offers important insight ...
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In the following essay, Petitjean argues that the narrative design of Coover's short story “The Babysitter” is intended to elicit multiple readings and interpretations.
Robert Coo...
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In the following review of John's Wife, Mesic praises Coover's prose style, but finds shortcomings in the novel's exaggerated depravity and sprawling cast of characters.
John�...
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Robert (Lowell) Coover
