Wright Morris revisited

the long version

Joseph Wydeven provides a fresh biographical and critical introduction to Wright Morris from the perspective of the closure of his career, taking into account the obvious aesthetic riches found in his narratives, photographic images, and combinations of the two. One of Morris's principal subjects is the American Dream, or more correctly, Wydeven says, American dreamers: those men and women who looked west and saw mythic and metaphysical landsapes upon which they imprinted their vast desires for happiness and success. Incorporating a portfolio of Morris's photographs, Wydeven suggests that the fiction and photography benefit from being examined in tandem, as part of a single aesthetic and complex approach to reality.