Matthew Teutsch
Matthew Teutsch is the Director of the Lillian E. Smith Center at Piedmont College. He maintains Interminable Rambling, a blog about literature, composition, culture, and pedagogy. He has published articles and book reviews in various venues including LEAR, MELUS, Mississippi Quarterly, African American Review and Callaloo. His research focus is African American, Southern, and American literature. He is the editor of Rediscovering Frank Yerby: Critical Essays (UPM 2020). Follow him on Twitter @SilasLapham.
Even though he sold millions of copies of his 33 books, many critics have viewed Yerby as nothing more than a pulp novelist who wrote pot boilers for money and nothing more. Robert Bone famously called Yerby the “prince of pulpsters” (176). However, some challenge that view, commenting on Yerby’s subversive undertones and his rewriting of Southern Romances like Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind (1936).