’Night, Mother by Marsha Norman opened on Broadway in 1983, earning the Tony Award for Best Play and the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play takes place in real time, with no intermission or breaks in the action, to depict the unrelenting emotional exchange between Thelma and her daughter, Jessie, after Jessie announces that she plans to commit suicide. As Jessie sets her affairs in order, Thelma tries unsuccessfully to stop Jessie’s plan from... Read Night, Mother Summary

Published in 2008, Olive Kitteridge is an unconventional novel by Elizabeth Strout that interlinks 13 tales about the people of Crosby, Maine. The novel is a collection of short stories tied together by the unifying element of titular character Olive Kitteridge. The novel won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and HBO created a mini-series of the book in 2014. Because of its construction, Strout’s novel is less about its plot than it is about... Read Olive Kitteridge Summary

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Our Town (1938) is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder. Wilder served in both World War I and World War II and wrote honestly about life in America. He wrote several plays but considered Our Town to be his best work. It was performed for the first time in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1938. Wilder received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Our Town, and the play is widely considered to be... Read Our Town Summary

When William Inge’s play Picnic opened on Broadway in 1953, it received much popular and critical acclaim. In the post-World War II era, in the face of rising paranoia and fear of communism, the televisions that had become fixtures in American homes broadcast idealized portrayals of small-town family life with shows such as The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952), Make Room for Daddy (1953), Leave it to Beaver (1957), and The Donna Reed Show... Read Picnic Summary

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard is a personal narrative describing her observations of a creek near her home in Virginia over the course of a year. Dillard, a suburban housewife, uses a first-person narrative voice to describe her walks, paying homage to a tradition of nature writing while posing large questions about the nature of God and wilderness. The author blends research into the natural world, philosophical inquiry, and poetic imagery while engaging... Read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Summary

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David Auburn’s play, Proof, premiered in 1999 in New Jersey before moving to New York for an Off-Broadway run and a successful transfer to Broadway in 2000. The original Broadway cast starred Mary Louise Parker as Catherine, and subsequently attracted several other famous women to play the role. Proof received extensive critical acclaim, winning a Drama Desk Award for Best New Play in 2000 and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best... Read Proof Summary

Ruined, by Lynn Nottage, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, defies easy categorization. To some, the play is an unconventional love story set in a war zone, while to others, it is a melodrama warning society of the irreparable damage war can inflict upon women and men. Either way,Ruined is a play that sends a global political message no one can ignore: rape as a weapon of war is profoundly damaging, and a... Read Ruined Summary

Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth, published in 1995, is a work of literary fiction that follows the titular character Mickey Sabbath, an aging yet lustful man, as he navigates life after the passing of his long-time mistress, Drenka. As Sabbath runs from his loss and his unhappy marriage, he finds himself in New York City, confronting the pain of his first wife’s disappearance and the death of his older brother, Morty, during World War II... Read Sabbath's Theater Summary

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So Long, See You Tomorrow is the acclaimed final novel by American writer and editor William Maxwell. Originally published in two parts in New Yorker magazine in 1979, the book appeared the following year and received the prestigious National Book Award in 1982. Maxwell was the fiction editor of the New Yorker from 1936 to 1975, making him one of the most influential literary editors of the era. He worked closely with J. D. Salinger... Read So Long, See You Tomorrow Summary

Swamplandia! is a 2011 novel by the American author Karen Russell. It is an adaptation of her short story “Ava Wrestles the Alligator,” first published in the Summer 2006 issue of the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story and later collected in her 2006 book of short stories, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. It was longlisted for the Orange Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.A Miami native, Russell uses magical realism... Read Swamplandia Summary

Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist is a literary fiction novel that follows the character-driven story of Macon Leary, who must navigate life following the death of his son and the dissolution of his marriage. The Accidental Tourist was originally published in 1985 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The Accidental Tourist is Anne Tyler’s 10th novel and one of her most recognized works. This study guide follows the paperback Berkley edition released in... Read The Accidental Tourist Summary

American writer Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel The Age Of Innocence (1920) was a post-armistice reflection on the 1870s New York society of her youth. Wharton, an American who lived abroad in Paris, was already the successful author of other novels, including The House of Mirth (1905) and Ethan Frome (1911).In a The New York Times article, Elif Batuman reflects that “eventually, each classic tells two stories: its own, and the story of all the... Read The Age of Innocence Summary

American writer Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, for his 2000 historical fiction novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The story unfolds in the period leading up to World War II and continues through the war years and beyond. The main characters are two Jewish cousins living in New York City and seeking success in the emerging comic book industry. One is the artist Josef... Read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Summary

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Thornton Wilder is a triple Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright and novelist. Two of his awards were for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and the other was for his 1927 novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. The novel was the second of his career and in addition to the Pulitzer it has been named as one of the best novels of the twentieth century by Time magazine and by the... Read The Bridge of San Luis Rey Summary

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a 2007 novel by the Dominican American author Junot Díaz. Its title character is a young overweight Dominican American man obsessed with fantasy novels, superhero comics, and tabletop role-playing games. Using Spanish neologisms, magical realism, and references to late-20th-century nerd culture, Díaz weaves a multigenerational family saga chronicling life under the murderous Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and the subsequent Dominican diaspora to the United States. Widely praised... Read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Summary

The Clean House, which premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2004 and opened Off-Broadway in 2006, was the first major play by celebrated American playwright Sarah Ruhl, whose other widely recognized works include Eurydice (2004), Dead Man’s Cell Phone (2007), and In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) (2009). The Clean House received a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Ruhl also earned... Read The Clean House Summary