“ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT SHORT NOVELS IN ENGLISH”:  JANET LEWIS AND A BOOK THAT WAS BORN AT STANFORD

In May 1933, a Stanford University Press sales manager was arrested for the murder of his wife at their campus home on Salvatierra Street.

Was it murder or accident? Placid Palo Alto was embroiled in a sensationalized scandal that endured for more than three years. After conviction, appeals and retrials, David Lamson was finally free.

One of the unlikelier outcomes of the notorious case: three distinguished novels by Stanford poet Janet Lewis, focusing on historical trials that had been swayed by circumstantial evidence. The most famous was The Wife of Martin Guerre (1941), which eventually became the subject of an opera, a play, several musicals and a film. Atlantic Monthly called it “one of the most significant short novels in English.”

The book will be the focus of the second “Another Look” book club event at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, at the Stanford Humanities Center’s Levinthal Room. The event will be moderated by English Professor Kenneth Fields, who was a friend of the late Janet Lewis (1899-1998) and her husband, renowned poet-critic and Stanford professor Yvor Winters (1900-68).  READ MORE…

THE WIFE OF MARTIN GUERRE:  FAMOUS STORY, LITTLE-KNOWN BOOK 

A calculated lie is at the center of Janet Lewis’ The Wife of Martin Guerre, and the lie explodes the life of everyone around it.  The novel a brutal tour de force, defying reader expectations.

“Another Look” seeks out short masterpieces forgotten, neglected or overlooked.  In the case of The Wife of Martin Guerre, we didn’t have to look farther than home.  The 1941 book was born at Stanford, and the author taught in its English Department.  Hailed as one of the top books of the last century, it’s too little-known today. The story has become famous, but the book has not.

The short novel, about a 16^th-century case of imposture in southwestern France, has been made into a play, an opera, several musical, and most notably The Return of Martin Guerre, a 1982 movie with Gérard Depardieu in the title role. READ MORE…

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK BY TOBIAS WOLFF:

So Long, See You Tomorrow is a remarkable novel. It was recognized as such at the time of its publication. It attracted critical acclaim after it was published in 1980, winning the National Book Award and the Howells Medal for American Fiction. Almost all the writers I know keep a special place in their hearts for this book…MORE

“Immense courage” (Photo: Brookie Maxwell)

A RETROSPECTIVE ON WILLIAM MAXWELL        BY CYNTHIA HAVEN:

 “I never felt sophisticated,” the erudite and elderly Midwesterner explained to NPR’s Terry Gross in 1995.  His modesty is certainly one reason why William Maxwell remains a connoisseur’s writer, never achieving the wider recognition he deserves.  Yet Maxwell’s career was situated at the epicenter of American literature and letters: On staff at the New Yorker from 1936 to 1975, he was the editor of J.D. Salinger, Vladimir Nabokov, Eudora Welty, Frank O’Connor, John Cheever, and many other luminaries. … MORE

ANNOUNCING “ANOTHER LOOK”:

Book clubs have proliferated across the U.S., though most stick to middle-of-the-road bestsellers. Once in a while, however, you run across an off-the-beaten-track book you may not know about, praised by a leading literary figure. Where do you go to talk about this unfamiliar, top-notch fare?  Look no further. Stanford is allowing readers to get an insider’s look at literature, via a seasonal book club, “Another Look,” which will be offered by one of the top-ranked English and creative writing departments in the nation. … MORE