Stone rescues autobiography from the thickets of recent critical theory, in which the life portrayed has often seemed less important than the inventive literary techniques. He argues that the techniques are important because knowledge of the life is important to our culture. Restricting himself primarily to 16 writers of the 20th century, Stone juxtaposes two or three figures in given chapters, such as "Becoming a Woman in Male America: Margaret Mead...

Uses emotive storytelling techniques to portray the realities of growing up as a native American.

This is Mark Twain's first novel about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, and it has become one of the world's best-loved books. It is a fond reminiscence of life in Hannibal, Missouri, an evocation of Mark Twain's own boyhood along the banks of the Mississippi during the 1840s. "Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred," he tells us. This is a book one never forgets: Tom whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence, Tom and Huck's dreadful oath, their...