PLAINVIEW – Dr. Deborah J. Kuhlmann, Professor of English in the School of Languages and Literature at Wayland Baptist University, is both editor and author of Sue Monk Kidd, A Collection of Critical Essays, a new book released this spring by TCU Press.
The publication, which offers seven analytic studies of several of Kidd’s novels, includes essays by three other current or former members of the Wayland faculty — Dr. Cindy McClenagan, Dr. Erin Heath, and Dr. Arch Mayfield. Kidd, who was recently inducted into The Georgia Writers Hall of Fame and is recipient of numerous awards, wrote the forward in the book.
Among Kidd’s novels explored in the essays are The Invention of Wings, The Secret Life of Bees, and The Book of Longings, plus the film version of The Secret Life of Bees. Each essay brings expanded perspectives to her work and can serve as an example for students and scholars of American literature.
Readers will find a discourse is launched regarding Kidd’s place in postcolonialism, identity, feminism, voice, perception, spirituality, and humor. Much like other notable Southern authors before her, Kidd’s vision is more tragedy than morality play or melodrama, closer to Realism but not without Romanticism. The essays reveal how oppression, abuse, abandonment, injustice, and other tragedies find their way into Kidd’s novels. The characters’ plights are met not with easy or tension-free resolutions. Love, humor, insight, transcendence, and grit are also rendered as characters struggle with inhumane difficulties. The collection imparts how Sue Monk Kidd’s world view is at once inclusive and expansive, transitional and transformative, heartbreaking and healing, while inviting more scholarly discourse and investigation of her works.
Kuhlmann teaches online courses in writing and literature at Wayland Baptist University. To purchase Sue Monk Kidd, A Collection of Critical Essays go to https://www.tamupress.com and search Sue Monk Kidd.
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