--New York Times Book Review
"This is a marvelously written little book, fascinatingly intricate, yet deceptively simple. Well worth reading more than once."


Book Description
The Relation of My Imprisonment 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 dramatization of the test of fait all true believers must endure. These "relation," 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 recounting of suffering, they were nonetheless highly artificial. To use the form self-consciously, as Russell 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.


About the Author
Russell Banks was raised in New Hampshire and eastern Massachusetts. The eldest of four children, he grew up in a working-class, hardscrabble world that has played a major role in shaping his writing.Banks (the first in his family to go to college) attended Colgate University "for less than a semester," and later graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before he could support himself as a writer, he tried his hand at plumbing, and worked as a shoe salesman and window dresser. More recently, he has taught at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, University of New Hampshire, New England College and New York University.A prolific writer of fiction, his titles include: Searching for Survivors, Family Life, Hamilton Stark, The New World, The Book of Jamaica, Trailerpark, The Relation of My Imprisonment, Continental Drift, Success Stories, Rule of the Bone, Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter (the latter two of which were made into feature films). His latest novel, Cloudsplitter is a national bestseller and has garnered critical acclaim. Banks has also contributed poems, stories and essays to The Boston Globe Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, Harper's and many other publications.Banks has won numerous awards and prizes for his work, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, Ingram Merril Award, the St. Lawrence Award for Short Fiction, O. Henry and Best American Short Story Award, the John Dos Passos Award, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Continental Drift was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and Affliction was short-listed for both the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize and the Irish International Prize.Banks has lived in a variety of places, from New England to Jamaica, which have contributed to the richness of his writing. He is married to the poet Chase Twichell and is the father of four grown daughters. He lives in Dublin, Ireland and summers in Cape Cod, MA.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Relation of My Imprisonment is a work of fiction utilizing a form invented in the seventeenth century by imprisoned Puritan devines. 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 Russell 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.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review

This is a marvelously written little book, fascinatingly intricate, yet deceptively simple. Well worth reading more than once.

Deirdre Bair