Good Boys and Dead Girls

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A collection of dazzling and thought-provoking essays from lauded author Mary Gordon Much acclaimed for her novels, Mary Gordon is also a brilliant and wide-ranging essayist. Gathering together twenty-eight of her forays into nonfiction, "Good Boys and Dead Girls" provides a richly autobiographical context for the themes that mark her fiction, such as Irish-American life, Catholicism, embattled families, and the redeeming power of art. Many of the pieces offer insights into artists and other writers: There are admiring accounts of Edith Wharton, Stevie Smith, and Ford Madox Ford, and a piquant critique of the depiction of women by certain celebrated male novelists. Whatever the topic at hand, Gordon proves lively and illuminating company.