This book offers an introduction to the works of a Cajun writer who finds optimism in his blue-collar tales. Margaret Donovan Bauer presents the first book-length study of the Louisiana storyteller, who injects a seldom heard Cajun voice into Southern literature and offers a rare optimistic vision among other contemporary writers of the hardscrabble American South. Bauer surveys Tim Gautreaux's three novels - ""The Next Step in the Dance"", ""The Clearing, and ""The Missing"" - and two collections of short fiction - ""Same Place, Same Things"" and ""Welding with Children"" - to identify his major themes, character types, and structures. She views his chief contribution to Southern letters to be an authentic insider's view of Cajun culture, one resulting in a skillful, realistic, and sympathetic vision of historical and contemporary Acadiana in flux. Bauer addresses how Gautreaux's hopeful vision distinguishes him from other contemporary writers of the blue-collar South. She views Gautreaux's poor white protagonists as action-oriented characters who, while trapped by circumstances, still strive to affect positive change in their lives.

About the Author
Louisiana native Margaret Donovan Bauer is a professor of English at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, where she was named the first Ralph Hardee Rives Chair of Southern Literature.


Book Information
ISBN 9781570038594
Author Margaret D. Bauer
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint University of South Carolina Press
Publisher University of South Carolina Press
Weight(grams) 456g
Dimensions(mm) 177mm * 129mm * 30mm