Grace Paley's Life Stories: A Literary Biography

by Judith Arcana

Is Faith Darwin Asbury really Grace Paley? Or is it coincidental that the personal history, politics, and relationships of the fictional Asbury seem to mirror those of the well-known author? And do other characters in Paley's stories represent individuals she has known, in scenes and entire episodes she has experienced? A writer who translates her life into art not only "saves" her own life, according to Paley, but offers others the revelation of its meaning. That idea is at the core of Judith Arcana's biographical reading of this strongly autobiographical writer. Grace Paley's Life Stories interweaves details about Paley with critical discussions of her works, examining her as a woman, mother, activist, and Jew. Arcana visited and interviewed Paley at her homes in Vermont and New York over a period of several years. She also interviewed Paley's family, friends, and colleagues. Such extensive research is unmatched in Paley scholarship; Arcana's focus on the political crucible of Paley's consciousness is rare in contemporary literary criticism.

Genres: Biography

269 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1992

Reviews

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing narrative about Grace Paley's life and her stories.

"My father was the one who had the power."

Jess ‘just objected to the world as it was.’ He was a constant objector to the situation as it was, and he always laughed at it.

WH Auden, poetic, asked her [Grace] about the language she used in her poems, about her ear, and about the voices she heard and spoke in her poetry. He asked if she really ‘talked like that’ or heard other people talk the way she was writing. He urged her to write in her own language -- to write what she actually heard and spoke -- instead of the language of an upper-middle-class Englishman.