Description
Book SynopsisThrough a wide-ranging series of essays and relevant readings,
A Companion to Twentieth-Century United States Fiction presents an overview of American fiction published since the conclusion of the First World War.
- Features a wide-ranging series of essays by American, British, and European specialists in a variety of literary fields
- Written in an approachable and accessible style
- Covers both classic literary figures and contemporary novelists
- Provides extensive suggestions for further reading at the end of each essay
Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors ix
Introduction 1
David Seed
Part I Genres, Traditions, and Subject Areas 9
1 U.S. Modernism 11
Susan Hegeman
2 The City Novel 24
James R. Giles
3 The Western 36
Neil Campbell
4 Postmodern U.S. Fiction 48
Hans Bertens
5 Modern Gothic 60
Marilyn Michaud
6 The Short Story 72
Mark Whalan
7 Southern Fiction 84
Sharon Monteith
8 Jewish American Fiction 96
David Brauner
9 "Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me": Modern African American Fiction 109
A. Robert Lee
10 U.S. Detective Fiction 122
Cynthia S. Hamilton
11 Hard-Boiled/Noir Fiction 135
Lee Horsley
12 Chicano Fiction 147
Helen Oakley
13 Black Humor Fiction 159
David Seed
14 Fiction on the Vietnam War 171
Philip Melling and Subarno Chattarji
15 The Rediscovery of the Native American 183
Joy Porter
16 Trash Fiction 195
Stacey Olster
Part II Selected Writers 207
17 Edith Wharton 209
Pamela Knights
18 Willa Cather's Entropology: Permanence and Transmission 219
Guy J. Reynolds
19 Gertrude Stein and Seriality 229
Ulla Haselstein
20 Ernest Hemingway 240
Peter Messent
21 John Dos Passos 251
Andrew Hook and David Seed
22 Thomas Wolfe 261
Anne Ricketson Zahlan
23 F. Scott Fitzgerald 271
William Blazek
24 Zora Neale Hurston 282
Lovalerie King
25 Theodore Dreiser 292
Clare Virginia Eby
26 William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha 302
Charles A. Peek
27 H.D.'s Visionary Prose 313
Rachel Connor
28 John Steinbeck 322
Brian Railsback
29 Raymond Chandler 332
Sean McCann
30 Richard Wright 342
Tara T. Green
31 Ralph Ellison 352
Rachel Farebrother
32 James Baldwin 361
D. Quentin Miller
33 Vladimir Nabokov 369
Barbara Wyllie
34 Norman Mailer 377
Michael K. Glenday
35 William S. Burroughs 386
Davis Schneiderman
36 Saul Bellow 395
Michael Austin
37 Gore Vidal 403
Heather Neilson
38 Joseph Heller 411
David M. Craig
39 Kurt Vonnegut 420
Jerome Klinkowitz
40 Thomas Pynchon 428
Ian Copestake
41 Ishmael Reed: American Iconoclast 436
Darryl Dickson-Carr
42 Joyce Carol Oates 445
Gavin Cologne-Brookes
43 Philip Roth 454
Timothy Parrish
44 The Fiction of John Updike: Timely and Timeless 462
Brian Keener
45 Maxine Hong Kingston 471
Helena Grice
46 Toni Morrison 480
Jennifer Terry
47 Alice Walker 489
Maria Lauret
48 Don DeLillo 497
Mark Osteen
49 Gerald Vizenor: Postindian Gamester 505
A. Robert Lee
50 Bret Easton Ellis 514
James Annesley
51 Amy Tan: "American Circumstances and Chinese Character" 522
Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson
52 Paul Auster: Poet of Solitude 530
Mark Brown
53 Bharati Mukherjee 539
Judie Newman
Index 547
