Grass, grain, grief and God (not necessarily in that Order): a study of the Kansas novel.

Abstract

In the spring of 1971, after reading the manuscript of a novel I had written with Kansas as a setting, Dr. Green Wyrick, Professor of English at Kansas State Teachers College, suggested that I consider a study of Kansas novels as a thesis topic. Such a study, he noted, might clarify my own understanding of the state and of its people and, additionally, make a contribution to a more widespread comprehension of the many novels which have been written with Kansas as a setting. Because of my interest in the state and the possibilities it holds for novelists, and because no similar study had been written, I became intrigued with the idea. This study is the result. Because of my investigation, which included a careful reading of approximately forty Kansas novels, and a scanning of more than fifty others, the second draft of my own "Kansas novel" will, no doubt, be quite unlike the first draft. I would hope, in addition, that readers of this study will find, if nothing else, food tor thought about the future of the Kansas novel. While many novelists have discussed, with great detail, segments of the state's history, few have examined with any intensity, the state or its people in the most recent three decades of the twentieth century. Perhaps, this study might inspire authors to write contemporary Kansas novels about the state as it is today.