Research Guides: Boyle, T. C.: Overview, Background, and Characters

Ebooks

"Greasy Lake" from Masterplots II
Provides a short summary of the story with notes on characters, themes, and further sources.
Literary Contexts in Short Stories: T. Coraghessan Boyle's "Greasy Lake"
This essay presents the literary context to the short story "Greasy Lake." Set on a June night and early morning, the opening words, "There was a time," imply a fairy tale-like timelessness for the action. The story is narrated in the first person by an unnamed man looking back to his days as a nineteen year old. The story is superficially simple, a direct, linear narrative of a single event in the narrator's life. It is deeply indebted to the initiation story. Every city or town has its own Greasy Lake and its disaffected youth enacting what they think are acts of defiance and rebellion against parents and authority. The youths in this story are clearly rebels without much cause and without much real need for rebellion.

American Short Fiction by Salem Press Editors
Call Number: PS374.S5I58 2013
ISBN: 1619252120
Publication Date: 2013-10-01
The Introduction to Literary Context series provides introductory overviews of some of the world's best-known works of literature, including novels, short stories, novellas, and poems, placing them in historical, societal, scientific and religious context of their time to deepen understanding and encourage discussion.

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