McPherson, James Alan

New York. 2000. February 2000. Simon & Schuster. Advance Uncorrected Reader's Proof. Very Good in Wrappers. 0684834642. 315 pages. paperback. Jacket design by Julie Metz. keywords: Literature America Black Essays Memoir Autobiography. FROM THE PUBLISHER - A Region Not Home: Reflections from Exile is a collection of McPherson's essays that cover a broad spectrum of his intellectual pursuits. For two decades following his winning the Pulitzer Prize for Elbow Room, James Alan McPherson retreated from the literary world while he held a teaching position at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Written during this time spent teaching, A Region Not Home: Reflections from Exile is a deft collection of McPherson's brilliantly composed essays that cover a broad spectrum of his intellectual pursuits. They offer poignant and lively interpretations of life that, placed side-by-side, create a medium through which the sublime speaks to the ordinary -- and the ordinary to the sublime. McPherson writes of the longing of the human soul by unifying thoughts of his deep affection for his daughter and the meaning of Disneyland; transcendental meanings in life and the tedium of long waits in airports; coming to self-knowledge and the cruel rituals of fraternity pledge week. McPherson combines his past with his present by writing of such people and places as Ralph Ellison, a friend and source of inspiration; James O. Freedman, former president of Dartmouth College and crusader against the conservative Dartmouth Review; Rachel, his daughter; Morris Brown College, his alma mater; El Camino Real, the main thoroughfare of affluent Palo Alto, California; and Iowa City, a place he holds close to his heart. McPherson's prose uncovers his profound understanding of the ebb and flow of life's sorrows and delights and reveals his search for connections between everyday drudgery and a greater sense of purpose. inventory #27260 ISBN: 0684834642.