The Relation of My Imprisonment

A Fiction

by Russell Banks

On Sale: 03/27/1996

The Relation of My Imprisonment

A Fiction

by Russell Banks

On Sale: 03/27/1996

Format:

About the Book

“Banks has skillfully used his repertoire of contemporary techniques to write a novel that is classically Americana dark, but sometimes funny, romance with echoes of Poe and Melville.” — Washington Post

"A marvelously written little book, fascinatingly intricate, yet deceptively simple. Well worth reading more than once." — New York Times Book Review

From acclaimed author Russell Banks comes a work of fiction utilizing a form invented in the seventeenth century by imprisoned Puritan divines

Designed to be exemplary, works of this type were aimed at brethren outside the prison walls and functioned primarily as figurative dramatizations of the tests of faith all true believers must endure. These “relations,” framed by scripture and by a sermon explicating the text, were usually read aloud in weekly or monthly installments during religious services. Utterly sincere and detailed recountings of suffering, they were nonetheless highly artificial. To use the form self-consciously, as Banks has done, is not to parody it so much as to argue good-humoredly with the mind it embodies, to explore and, if possible, to map the limits of that mind, the more intelligently to love it.


Critical Praise

"A marvelously written little book, fascinatingly intricate, yet deceptively simple. Well worth reading more than once." — New York Times Book Review

“Witty and profound. . . Russell Bank’s tale of a jailed coffin-maker is a small but marvelous addition to the gallery of trapped minds.” — Washington Post Book World

“Stunning and original. . . . Russell Banks’s most sustained, intricate, and impressive work to date.” — Chicago Sun-Times

“A success. . . . Ironic, melancholy, and haunting.” — Newsweek

“Banks has skillfully used his repertoire of contemporary techniques to write a novel that is classically American—a dark, but sometimes funny, romance with echoes of Poe and Melville.” — Washington Post

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Resources

Product Details

  • ISBN: 9780060976804
  • ISBN 10: 0060976802
  • Imprint: Ecco
  • On Sale: 03/27/1996
  • Pages: 128
  • List Price:15.99 CAD
  • BISAC1 : FICTION / Adaptations & Pastiche
  • BISAC2 : FICTION / Literary
  • BISAC3 : FICTION / Psychological
  • BISAC4 : FICTION / Satire
  • BISAC5 : FICTION / Alternative History

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