The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot [Paperback]

Charles Baxter inauguratesThe Art of, a new series on the craft of writing, with the wit and intelligence he brought to his celebrated bookBurning Down the House: Essays on Fiction.

Fiction writer and essayist Charles Baxter'sThe Art of Subtext: Beyond Plotdiscusses and illustrates the hidden subtextual overtones and undertones in fictional works haunted by the unspoken, the suppressed, and the secreted. Using an array of examples from Melville and Dostoyevsky to contemporary writers Paula Fox, Edward P. Jones, and Lorrie Moore, Baxter explains how fiction writers create those visible and invisible details, how what is displayed evokes what is not displayed.

The Art of Subtextis part ofThe Art ofseries, a new line of books by important authors on the craft of writing, edited by Charles Baxter. Each book examines a singular, but often assumed or neglected, issue facing the contemporary writer of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry.The Art ofseries means to restore the art of criticism while illuminating the art of writing.

CHARLES BAXTERis the author of ten books, includingThe Feast of Love, a finalist for the National Book Award, andBurning Down the House: Essays on Fiction. He teaches at the University of Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis.

Baxter is smart about all aspects of craft. The Corresponder

A wonderful new volume about writing that's also about reading and the ways we make meaning in our lives. The Observer