Crabcakes A Memoir [Paperback]

With the same grace and lyrical precision that distinguish his vibrant short stories, James McPherson surveys the emotional upheaval of his last twenty-one years. From Baltimore, Maryland, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Iowa and Japan,Crabcakeswitnesses McPherson's confrontation with the past, and his struggle to make sense of it and to bind it, peacefully, to the present. His elliptical search for meaning -- and his ultimate understanding of what makes us human -- finds inCrabcakesa powerful and enduring voice.James Alan McPhersonis the author ofHue and Cry, Railroad,andElbow Room,for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1978. His essays and short stories have appeared in numerous periodicals -- includingThe New York Times Magazine, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Newsday, Plough-shares, The Iowa Review,andDouble-Take-- and anthologies such as volumes ofThe Best American Short Stories, The Best American Essays,andO. Henry Prize Stories.McPherson has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Prize Fellows Award. He is currently a professor of English at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in Iowa City.Lev RaphaelDetroit Free PressAll are likely to be moved by [McPherson's] prose, which at times recalls the passion and precision of James Baldwin.N. Graham NesmithPhiladelphia InquirerCrabcakesis an inspirational story of an individual who gains wisdom from his arduous decisions.PloughsharesThis beautiful book resonates as a personal meditation on race, self, and community.V. R. PetersonPeoplemagazine A thoughtful argument for valuing the rituals which sustain communities.Mimi McFarlandThe Bloomsbury ReviewCrabcakesproves once again that James Alan McPherson continues to be of incomparable value, not only to literature but to each of us.Felipe NievesThe Cleveland Plain DealerAs in the dazzling stories ofElbow Room...the writing is clean and crisp....TlÓÈ