Introduces readers to the author best known for Postcards and The Shipping News. The book examines her lyrical prose and wealth of detail, and analyses her primary thematic concern - the way ordinary people conduct their lives in the face of massive social, economic, and ecological change.

Karen L. Rood holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina and has been a senior editor at Bruccoli Clark Layman for more than twenty years. Rood has written articles and edited books on aspects of American literature and culture from the colonial period to the present. She lives in Columbia.