Despite depicting the occasional escape from role constraints, Cunningham's vision remains bleak with only flashes of hope shining through, often at the very conclusion of his texts. Most of Cunningham's characters have a nagging suspicion that they are not living the lives they should be, that they are engaged in acts of 'impersonation' that belittle their true selfhood.

This is no longer the 'fearful closet' novel of the 1960s nor the 'defiant ghetto' writing of the 1970s, rather it is fiction that treats homosexuality (and the looming shadow of AIDS) as just one subject among many. As some critics have noted, Cunningham's treatment of gay themes could only be a recent literary manifestation. The manner in which Cunningham subtly inserts the many references to homosexuality has an effortless, natural quality. In addition, these universal issues are often explored within the further complicating frame of homosexuality. The Hours addresses themes that have long been preoccupations of the author's: adopted social roles that end up owning us the common desire to flee from our lives the solution to that desire provided by suicide, but also by creativity and the strained role of family in the late twentieth century. Recent critical praise for Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, came as no surprise to those who followed his progression since the publication of A Home at the End of the World in 1990.

New York, Farrar Straus, and Giroux, 1998.* * * New York, Farrar Straus, and Giroux, 1995. New York, Farrar Straus, andGiroux, 1990.įlesh and Blood. Publications NovelsĪ Home at the End of the World. Career: Worked for Carnegie Corp., New York, beginning in 1986. Education: Attended Stanford University University of Iowa, M.F.A.

Cunningham michael the hours