The Writings of Richard Stern : The Education of an Intellectual Everyman

For fifty years, the American Richard Stern has been praised as a "writer's writer." His collected stories in Noble Rot 1949-1989 earned him a Book of the Year Award from the Chicago Sun-Times adding to his recognition as one of America's most acclaimed writers of fiction in novels and short stories.

This work is a two-part study of Stern's life and writings.

Part I provides an overview of his life and writings, discussing major themes, such as routines, randomicity, reversals, revelations, and redemption, and subthemes such as men and women, domestic warfare, compulsion, peanut butter, Aesthetes vs.

Hearties, and mind (imagination) over lucre Part II explores the issue of fictional autobiography as it relates to Stern's work, and analyzes each of his published novels and short stories from Golk (1960) to Pacific Tremors and What Is What Was his most recent novel and collection of essays, respectively in 2001.

An interview with Richard Stern is included at the end of the work.