
On Edge
Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett
Ashley Lawson(Author)
Ohio State University Press
Published on 21. September 2024
Book
Hardback
210 pages
978-0-8142-1574-6 (ISBN)
Description
Honorable Mention, 2025 PCA Emily Toth Award For Best Single Work In Women's Studies
Finalist, 2025 Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards, Best Critical/Biographical Category
Finalist, Bouchercon New Orleans 2025 Anthony Awards, Best Critical/Non-Fiction
Nominated for the 2025 Macavity Awards, Best Mystery-related Nonfiction/Critical
Ashley Lawson's On Edge presents a new picture of postwar American literature, arguing that biases against genre fiction have unfairly disadvantaged the legacies of authors like Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett. Each of these women navigated a male-dominated postwar publishing world without compromising their values. Their category-defying treatment of gender roles and genre classifications created suspense in their work that spoke to the tensions of the "Age of Anxiety." Lawson engages with foundational voices in American literature, genre theory, and feminism to argue that, by merging the dominant mode of literary realism with fantastical or heightened elements, Brackett, Jackson, and Highsmith responded to the big questions of their era with startling and unnerving answers. By elevating genre play to a marker of literary skill, Lawson contends, we can secure these writers a more prominent place within the canon of midcentury American literature and open the door for the recovery of their similarly innovative peers.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Columbus, OH
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
499 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8142-1574-6 (9780814215746)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ashley Lawson is Associate Professor of English at West Virginia Wesleyan College. Her research centers on twentieth-century American literature and women's creativity. She has published essays on Zelda Fitzgerald, Dawn Powell, Shirley Jackson, Sara Haardt, and Estelle Faulkner. In addition to these specialties, her teaching interests include Iranian and Japanese women writers, femmes fatales, and the American gothic.