Author’s Bio: Bobbie Ann Mason was born in 1940 in Western Kentucky and lived with her family on their dairy farm. Mason was very open-minded as a child and loved to read about anything from aliens to agnosticism. She received her Ph.D. in English Literature in 1972 from the University of Connecticut and then taught journalism and literature at a college. After that, she started her writing career with publishing The Girl Sleuth. Her writing sometimes has a feminist point of view and often have some sort of war involved. Critics of her work say that she has a running theme of “shopping mall realism”. Mason writes most of her stories in the point of view of working class people in a world of highways and evolving society. She has said in many interviews that she wants to tell the stories of the waitresses, truckers, hairdressers because they are more prominent than the professionals in this world and their stories need to be told.
The…show more content… Women, African-Americans, LGBTQ, and minors were fighting for their rights and people were protesting for peace in Vietnam. Gas prices went through the roof and many people were unemployed. Computers first came out and MRIs were invented. For the longest time, the world around Leroy was a blur and he never saw the world grow like everyone else did. So, when he stayed home after his trucking accident, he saw everything in slow motion. Leroy saw the farms around his town become suburbs. Norma was seeing the world change also. However, Norma and Leroy reacted differently to these changes. Norma was progressive; she used the changes to her advantage. Leroy was in denial and did not go anywhere. He just let it all happen to him, unlike Norma who made it work for her. This setting and how the characters react to this setting contributes to their problems. The way they are reacting and how different they are from another makes