White Boys And River Girls

From an exciting new voice in American fiction comes nine tales of barmaids and musicians, single mothers and burned-out businessmen--about lives lived a little too close to the edge and love longed for, lost, and sometimes regained.

Part ethnography, part cultural study, this text examines the lives of teenage girls from the world of the Long Island, New York, middle school in order to explore how standards of normalcy define gender, exercise power, and reinforce the cultural practices of whiteness.

Draws on eighteen months of research in a racially diverse working-class high school to explore the meaning of masculinity and the social practices associated with it, discussing how homophobia is used to enforce gender conformity.

"Hapke's book, remarkable in scope and inclusiveness, offers those concerned with American working people a mine of information about and analysis of the 'rich lived history of American laborers' as that has been represented in fictions of every kind. She provides an invaluable foundation for understanding the dirtiest of America's dirty big secrets: the pervasivness of class differences, class discrimination, indeed of class conflict in this, the wealthiest nation in history. Hers is an indispensable guided tour through more than a century and a half of literary representations of 'hands' at their looms, pikets on the line, agitators on their soapboxes, ordinary working women, men, and children in kitchens, parks, factories, and fields across America." --Paul Lauter, A.K. & G.M. Smith Professor of Literature, Trinity College "Labor's Text sets over 150 years of the multi-ethnic literature of work in the context of the history that informed it--the history of labor organizing, of industrial change, of social transformations, and of shifting political alignments. Any scholar of American literature or American history cannot help but be enlightened by this boldly ambitious and illuminating book." -- Shelly Fisher Fishkin, professor of American studies, University of Texas, Austin "Labor's Text traverses nearly two centuries of the U.S. literary response in fiction to workers and the work experience. Casting her net more broadly than any of her predecessors, Hapke's revision of the genre includes many recent writing not usually recognized as part of the tradition. Coming at a moment when there is a steady increase in interest about 'class' from color- and gender-inflected perspectives, this is a work of committed scholarship that may well prove to be a crucial compass to reorient the thinking and scholarship of a new generation." -- Alan Wald, author of Writing from the Left "A stunning work of scholarship. . . . It is an extraordinary achievement and an immense contribution to working-class studies." --Janet Zandy, author of Calling Home: Working-Class Women's Writings Laura Hapke is a professor of English at Pace University. The winner of two Choice magazine Outstanding Academic Book awards, she is the author of Daughters of the Great Depression: Women, Work, and Fiction in the American 1930s and other books on labor fiction and working-class studies.

Stories by writers with Southern backgrounds deal with the modern problems of life in the South

River Crossings By: Dr. Curtis J. Way Edited by: Staff at Spoon Book Publishing About this Book This book is about a black woman who vicariously and ability wise saw herself as a blue-eyed blond seeking economic security, compatible sex, and peace amongst races; she experienced River Crossings. Rivers are beautiful to view and they are an iconic symbol of natures grace and power. River Crossings here represents the obstacles that this woman had to overcome just to have the basics. This family and this woman were sharecroppers who had to overcome obstacles that were mostly embedded in the customs; now she attempts to promote healing and end hate. River Crossings has some very vivid intimate scenes but not as many as in Dr. Ways two other books Sunrise Sunset at East Blythewood Ranch & Maggies Cycle. This trilogy is intended to be sexually real raw enjoyable quick reads and it is hoped that you will like them. Please let us know what you think at Spoon Book Publishing at [email protected].

Stories by writers with Southern backgrounds deal with the modern problems of life in the South