This is the first book to define and explore the ramifications of a new and powerful character type in twentieth-century American literature - the Ugly Woman. 'Ugly Woman' stories undermine basic American cultural assumptions about the nature and value of beauty and subvert the standard role of the literary heroine who, being ugly is free from the emotional and physical burdened of family, lovers and society and thus gives her unprecedented freedom over her own fate. Authors who have experimented with the ugly woman character include both men and women and come form all ethnic groups. Included in this study are; Sherwood Anderson, Russell Banks, Djuna Barnes, Peter Betts, Sarah Bird, Ray Bradbury, Katherine Dunn, Louise Erdrich, William Faulkner, Tess Gallagher, Barry Hannah, Ernest Hemingway, Alison Lurie, Lorrie Moore, Anne Tyler, Alice Walker and Eudora Welty among others.