The Critical Children: Society and Communication in the Age of Diversity

Introduction1. Charles Dickens's Heroic Victims: Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Pip2. Mark Twain's Free Spirits and Slaves: Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn3. Henry James's Demonic Lambs: Miles and Flora in The Turn of the Screw4. J. M. Barrie's Eternal Narcissist: Peter Pan5. J. D. Salinger's Saintly Dropout: Holden Caulfield6. Vladimir Nabokov's Abused Nymph: Lolita7. Philip Roth's Performing Loudmouth: Alexander PortnoyAcknowledgmentsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

Richard Locke is professor of writing at the Columbia University School of the Arts, and his essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Wall Street Journal, The American Scholar, The Threepenny Review, The Yale Review, and other publications. He has been editor in chief of Vanity Fair and deputy editor of the New York Times Book Review.

Using the portrayal of childhood as his eye-opening theme and total immersion as his critical method, Richard Locke brilliantly reexamines classic novels we complacently thought we understood. He enlarges and freshens our insight into modern works by Salinger, Nabokov, and Philip Roth by placing them in a line that reaches back to masterpieces by Dickens and Twain. This is an intense, subtle, elegantly written, and exceptionally illuminating work. -- Morris Dickstein, author of Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression Deep, acute, skillful, responsive, and determined to get into these ten famous novels whose exteriors are so glistening, Richard Locke's Critical Children is a major instance of active literary criticism in our moment. -- Richard Howard, author of Without Saying Richard Locke succeeds in giving a fresh mythic quality to the prismlike insights of Dickens, Twain, James, Barrie, Salinger, Nabokov, and Roth (with a nod to the other Roth, Henry)... His chapters on Dickens and Barrie are outstanding; and Locke may be the first to detect the effect of seventeenth-century scholar Sir Thomas Browne on Holden Caulfield. Publishers Weekly (starred review) Richard Locke has done a remarkable job. His criticism operates at a very high level of engagement with the text, pulling into play a wide range of associations and intellectual focus that is rare and exhilarating. -- Jay Parini, author of Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America Critical Children is a fine example of literary criticism at its most sensitive and probing and hearteningly reminds us that the criticism of fiction is still possible and worth doing. -- William H. Pritchard, author of Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered Brilliant... Everyone... will be affected by Locke's love for the works he discusses. His commentary sends you rushing back to the original novels, eager to reread them and do your own interpreting. Irish Times 10/15/2011 incisive and entertaining... --