Jack Matthews Reads His Short Story,
"The Girl at the Window."
 "The
Girl at the Window" by Jack Matthews
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to Jack Matthews and Don Swaim
discuss the life and writings of Ambrose Bierce
Listen
to Jack Matthews talk with Don Swaim about his life of writing, teaching,
and book collecting
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Read what others have written about Jack
Matthews' writing:
Of THE CHARISMA CAMPAIGNS, Anthony
Burgess wrote, "This book already has the feel of an American classic."
In a NEW YORK TIMES review of DUBIOUS
PERSUASIONS, Tim O'Brien wrote: "Mr. Matthews is a master of prose conversation and
deadpan charm. He is ironic, cool, and shrewd, and he writes a lucid prose."
Of SASSAFRAS, James Dickey wrote,
"It's rowdy, boisterous, bold, and it flows over with comic energy. Our hero is
that great American figure, the philosopher-rogue. If the young Mark Twain suddenly
came back to earth, SASSAFRAS is the book he might write."
Of HANGER STOUT, AWAKE! Eudora Welty
wrote that she found it "blessed with honesty, clarity, directness, proportion, and a
lovely humor."
Poet, essayist, and editor, Robin Skelton
wrote of COLLECTING RARE BOOKS FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT: "Wittily and expertly
[Matthews] takes us on a journey through the country of Bibliomania, providing anecdotes,
giving hints, analyzing trends, and expressing at all times his own infectious enthusiasm
. . . I would have liked another 300 pages of entertainment, having read the first 300
three times already."
In his LOS ANGELES TIMES review of THE
CHARISMA CAMPAIGNS, the novelist Herbert Gold wrote: "Celebrity has never been a
trustworthy guide to contemporary quality, and Matthews is more evasive and elusive than
most writers. His books strike a note of Midwestern spareness and matter-of-factness,
combined with thunderclap digestive noises of buffoonery; the surfaces are clear and the
depths not intrusive. And yet matters are more complicated than they seem. He pretends to
be innocent. He pretends to be sincere. He is not innocent and he is filled with guile.
[Matthews is] a most interesting original, surely meriting discovery . . ."
In his WASHINGTON POST review of BOOKING
IN THE HEARTLAND, David Streitfeld wrote that " . . . anyone who's got the book bug
will find much pleasure here. It's sent me on the search for Matthews' COLLECTING RARE
BOOKS FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT, which I intend to snap up the first time I find it
languishing in an antique shop or flea market."
In her NEW YORK TIMES review of CRAZY
WOMEN, Doris Grumbach wrote, "Jack Matthews in his straightforward language reaches a
point at which his facts take on ominous overtones, allow suggestions of horror,
desperation, threat to enter through the clear, undecorated logic of events . . . His
heights are towering and intense."
In his LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS review of
GHOSTLY POPULATIONS, Karl Miller wrote: "Matthews . . . contributes . . . to an
excellent American fiction of the present time which seems to be virtually unknown in
Britain, where feelings of respectful inferiority are commonly produced by other varieties
of American writing."
In the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER Alida
Becker--cited by the National Book Critics Circle for excellence in reviewing--wrote of
DUBIOUS PERSUASIONS: "What Matthews is doing in these stories is speculating of what
a sense of time and place mean to our sense of identity. But if he's always challenging us
to think a little harder, he's also urging us, through the astonishing variety of his
moods and voices, to see ourselves and our preoccupations from as many angles as we
possibly can."
Of Matthews' MEMOIRS OF A BOOKMAN, Sam
Pickering wrote: "I read the book . . . with great enjoyment. Indeed, there were
moments when I could not put it down. The book is informative and entertaining. It is also
philosophical. Matthews' bookish doings exemplify a way of life. The book teaches the good
lesson that interest breeds observation and observation breeds life. the life is
wonderfully rich in goods, both material and moral. The voice of the author is unique and
appealing."
In his USA TODAY review, Bruce Allen
wrote: "Superb short stories appeared in DIRTY TRICKS, by Jack Matthews . . . whose
virtuosic concern with human variation and conflict displays a remarkable range of tones
and effects."
In the LOS ANGELES TIMES, Art Seidenbaum
wrote: "Few contemporary writers can--or want to--compose stories in the narrow
tunnel of the interior, the rutted trail of memory between mind and heart, sometimes
shutting out other people as well as time and place and usual props. Matthews takes us
there, carrying a bright light."
"The Girl at the
Window" appears in DUBIOUS PERSUASIONS: SHORT STORIES BY JACK MATTHEWS, The Johns
Hopkins Press, 1981.
Jack
Matthews is the author of over twenty books of fiction, essays, and
poetry. His works have appeared in THE YALE REVIEW, THE MALAHAT REVIEW,
THE SEWANEE REVIEW, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC,
THE NATIONAL REVIEW, POETRY, THE KENYON REVIEW, MADEMOISELLE, THE
SOUTHERN REVIEW, GAMUT, and THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. He is Distinguished
Professor of English Language and Literature at Ohio University.
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