... told around campfires. There's a plot to drown the world in blood, and a horrifying resurgence of an ancient master race. No, maybe not. Shake the box again and look. This time it's a weirdly charming novel of innocence and experience layered onto a mystery seething with vivid characterizations and magical realism. Shake again. The exact latitude and longitude of Paradise: go there and ... of his writing to the writers he interviewed. Schweitzer's questions and comments seem very monotone when compared to the responses of the writers like Theodore Sturgeon. Science fiction writers bring ...

• Word Count: 2850
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Damned In regards to the plot, in a technical way, The Beautiful and Damned is orderly and easy to understand. The material is divided into three books, each with three chapters. Fitzgerald sticks to prose narrative and dialogue for the most part, and he keeps a consistent tone and point of view throughout ... a sorrow to the novel, a pessimistic cloud that hangs over all the characters and America as well. The title suggests the protagonists' movement from the pampered life of the beautiful to the suffering of the damned. The damnation is mainly caused by alcohol. Toward the end of the b...

• Word Count: 2828
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

... After briefly attending the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he moved to Sacramento, California, where he became a hospital custodian for three years. During this time, he began writing seriously and publishing his stories. Carver suffered personal turmoil in 1967, both losing his father and filing for bankruptcy. However ... the next few years. As a result, he was offered a number of teaching positions at universities. At the same time, alcohol increasingly began to affect his life. In 1976, unemployed and bankrupt, he began to drink very heavily. Carver and his wife separated and he underwent r...

• Word Count: 11148
• Approx Pages: 45
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School