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'After a year in New York in 1935-1936, Christina Stead commented that "the whole spirit of New York is opposed to the creative mind". Yet America and Americans became the matter of five of her subsequent novels. After a leftwing Australian background and a number of years in socialist milieus in London and Paris, Stead was an intriguing reader of 1940s America. In her late American work, I'm Dying Laughing (begun 1949, published 1986), Stead became that most precarious of things - a leftwing critic of the Left during the early Cold War. Desire for success and the accompanying fear of failure are thematised by Stead as "the American dilemma" - the contradictory relationship between collective action and individual survival at the heart of American national identity that she saw as no less forceful and tragic for many on the Left.' (Author's abstract)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- I'm Dying Laughing : The Humourist 1986 single work novel
- The Man Who Loved Children 1940 single work novel
- House of All Nations 1938 single work novel
- Letty Fox, Her Luck 1946 single work novel
- A Little Tea, a Little Chat 1948 single work novel