SOURCE: Wilhelm, Albert E. “Bobbie Ann Mason: Searching for Home.” In Southern Writers at Century's End, edited by Jeffrey J. Folks and James A. Perkins, pp. 151–63. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1997.

In the following essay, Wilhelm examines Mason's portrayal of the effects of social change on her characters. Wilhelm refutes criticism that judges Mason's work as repetitive, demonstrating that her central theme is an important component of the “Big Bertha Stories” in Love Life as well as In Country.

In the Bobbie Ann Mason story “Lying Doggo,” a young woman proclaims, “One day I was listening to Hank Williams and shelling corn for the chickens and the next day I was expected to know what wines went with what” (Shiloh 207). In “Graveyard Day,” a divorced mother observes that families “shift membership, like clubs” (167), and “a stepfather is like a substitute host on a talk show” (173). In a...