Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit: Books from the 1950s That Made American Culture - Hardcover

outlines the influence of landmark mid-century books that have come to define American culture today. Knickerbocker, October 18, 2004 Professor Castronovo contends in his marvelous book Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit subtitled Books from the 1950 s that Made American Culture that the fifties were a lot more than the contemporary perception. By God, he s right on. www.warrenadler.com, 3/14/05 (About Warren Adler: Mr. Adler is the world famous author of 27 novels including The War of the Roses and Random Hearts, as well as short story collections such as The Sunset Gang) This is a fresh at a time that I now believe now demands close inquiry, of which Castronovo s book is a fine example. He brings fifties writers seldom thought of together in rewarding juxtapositions I m thinking of his wonderful chapter on Salinger and the Beats and never loses sight of the cultural context. Beyond the Grey Flannel Suit is compellingly written and represents literary and cultural history at its best. Mary V. Dearborn, author of Mailer: a Biography Beyond the Grey Flannel Suit revisits moments of American literary culture in the fifties with a fresh eye, a fluent critical style, and a deep well of learning. It made me yearn, as a reader and book editor alike, for a time when our best writers managed to finesse any contradictions between high modernist intent and the task of addressing a broad and cultivated audience. His case for the fifties as a golden age is, in the end, irrefutable, and his book will send readers back to the works he discusses with a keen sense of rediscovery. Gerald Howard, winner of the PEN / Roger Klein Award for Book Editing Castronovo is strong on individual texts Castronovo s thesis is persuasive and provocative. The Antioch Review, Spring 2005 ."..the evaluation of the classics is judicious and very well written...[Castronovo] is fresh and interesting... Although more designed for the general reader than the specialist, the book offers a timely reminder of the enormous variety of American fiction in a period before the media set the national agenda. Above all, Castronovo made me want to reread most of them."- Judie Newman, MLR "Vol. 101.4, 2006 "David Castronovo'snotable book takes on a formidable task for its relatively slim size. In a little over two hundred pages, Beyondthe Gray Flannel Suit undertakes as voxed in the introduction, to survey America'sliterary standouts from the fifties and to explain their 'long-range value forreaders in the twenty-first century.' Castronovo delivers much more than this promise...A read-throughinvigorates the reader to speculate and formulate critical assessments aboutthe greatness of these and other novels, particularly about how they evoke anera and still speak to our current one. Any graduate or undergraduate would benefit from a perusal of Beyond theGray Flannel Suit." -Studies in the Novel, Vol. 39 number 3 "Mr. Castronovo is a literary gentleman, which is another way of saying he possesses qualities ever more rare in our times erudition, taste, and manners." Gary Shapiro, New York Sun "If you couldn't find grat new fiction to read this year, there were plenty of guides to great old fiction around [including] .Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit by David Castronovo. Castronovo, a biographer of Edmund Wilson, makes the case that the fiction of the 50s was rich and diverse, capturing both the shift of focus to American youth and the suburban culture. He calls is a "third flowering of American talent." Consider the writers: Mailer, Bellow, Ellison, Flannery O'Connor, Yates, Baldwin, Updike, Cheever, Roth and Nabokov. The title comes from the Sloan Wilson best seller, "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," which is seldom remembered today because of its conventionality. Quote: "All of the books of our lives are confrontational in the best sense of the word. They use ideas and emotions to challenge us; they are thought-infested and obsessed with their views of the world without being ideological." Bob Hoover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/14/04 "It is an era-defining, catchall book... it is exhilarating to read a critic so self-assured in his likes and in his studied disapprovals... We have the sweep and accessible prose style without being bogged down by an apparatus."- Steven Belletto, "Contemporary Literature, "Vol. 48 No. 1--Sanford Lakoff "Castronovo is an astute, blunt, and erudite critic; he is enthusiastic, not jargonistic, and manages to make many of the classic books of the 1950s the ones most English majors know seem relevant and fresh .In Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit, David Castronovo effectively demonstrates that to reenter the life of the 1950s, that lost and transformative decade, we must turn again to the books that prove that 'there was undoubtedly something good about a time when so many works of supurb quality could be written and published and recognized.'" Brian Murray, Weekly Standard, Feb. 7, 2005--Sanford Lakoff "In Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit [Castronovo] demonstrates once again that he is one of our most graceful cultural critics. He writes with an easy confidence that makes his journey to the heart of the 50's both enlightening and engaging. His prose style has the light touch of the literary journalist, together with the breadth and discrimination of the scholar .There is a high quality of perception running throughout the entire book .Make no mistake: Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit is a keenly observed and exhilarating work." Robert Emmet Long, America Magazine, January 31, 2005--Sanford Lakoff "America: The National Catholic Weekly " "David Castronovo's notable book takes on a formidable task for its relatively slim size. In a little over two hundred pages, Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit undertakes as voxed in the introduction, to survey America's literary standouts from the fifties and to explain their 'long-range value for readers in the twenty-first century.' Castronovo delivers much more than this promise...A read-through invigorates the reader to speculate and formulate critical assessments about the greatness of these and other novels, particularly about how they evoke an era and still speak to our current one. Any graduate or undergraduate would benefit from a perusal of Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit." -Studies in the Novel, Vol. 39 number 3

American writers of the 1920s, such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, have been heralded as The Lost Generation, while an earlier generation formed The American Renaissance. Far less critical attention has been paid to mid-twentieth-century literature and how a super-charged body of writing changed our perceptions of the world. Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit considers the books of our lives, which shaped our times, whether we realize it or not. Where did youth culture come from? Why do people argue over pop and high culture? What part do race and ethnicity play in an author's work? By examining a carefully selected range of books and authors, Castronovo shows the true significance of the remarkable literary explosion that took place between the late 1940s and the JFK years.