Coming of Age in Contemporary American Fiction

Coming of Age in Contemporary American Fiction PDF Author: Kenneth Millard
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748629548
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book

Book Description
This book explores the ways in which a range of recent American novelists have handled the genre of the 'coming-of-age' novel, or the Bildungsroman. Novels of this genre characteristically dramatise the vicissitudes of growing up and the trials and tribulations of young adulthood, often presented through depictions of immediate family relationships and other social structures. This book considers a variety of different American cultures (in terms of race, class and gender) and a range of contemporary coming-of-age novels, so that aesthetic judgements about the fiction might be made in the context of the social history that fiction represents. A series of questions are asked:* Does the coming-of-age moment in these novels coincide with an interpretation of the 'fall' of America?* What kind of national commentary does it therefore facilitate?* Is the Bildungsroman a quintessentially American genre?* What can it usefully tell us about contemporary American culture? Although the focus is on the conte

Coming of Age in Contemporary American Fiction

Coming of Age in Contemporary American Fiction PDF Author: Kenneth Millard
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748629548
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book

Book Description
This book explores the ways in which a range of recent American novelists have handled the genre of the 'coming-of-age' novel, or the Bildungsroman. Novels of this genre characteristically dramatise the vicissitudes of growing up and the trials and tribulations of young adulthood, often presented through depictions of immediate family relationships and other social structures. This book considers a variety of different American cultures (in terms of race, class and gender) and a range of contemporary coming-of-age novels, so that aesthetic judgements about the fiction might be made in the context of the social history that fiction represents. A series of questions are asked:* Does the coming-of-age moment in these novels coincide with an interpretation of the 'fall' of America?* What kind of national commentary does it therefore facilitate?* Is the Bildungsroman a quintessentially American genre?* What can it usefully tell us about contemporary American culture? Although the focus is on the conte

When All the World Was Young

When All the World Was Young PDF Author: Ferrol Sams
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
ISBN: 1461734444
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 628

Get Book

Book Description
The final installment in Sam's epic trilogy about coming of age in the South.

If God Meant to Interfere

If God Meant to Interfere PDF Author: Christopher Douglas
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501703528
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book

Book Description
The rise of the Christian Right took many writers and literary critics by surprise, trained as we were to think that religions waned as societies became modern. In If God Meant to Interfere, Christopher Douglas shows that American writers struggled to understand and respond to this new social and political force. Religiously inflected literature since the 1970s must be understood in the context of this unforeseen resurgence of conservative Christianity, he argues, a resurgence that realigned the literary and cultural fields. Among the writers Douglas considers are Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, N. Scott Momaday, Gloria Anzaldúa, Philip Roth, Carl Sagan, and Dan Brown. Their fictions engaged a wide range of topics: religious conspiracies, faith and wonder, slavery and imperialism, evolution and extraterrestrial contact, alternate histories and ancestral spiritualities. But this is only part of the story. Liberal-leaning literary writers responding to the resurgence were sometimes confused by the Christian Right’s strange entanglement with the contemporary paradigms of multiculturalism and postmodernism —leading to complex emergent phenomena that Douglas terms "Christian multiculturalism" and "Christian postmodernism." Ultimately, If God Meant to Interfere shows the value of listening to our literature for its sometimes subterranean attention to the religious and social upheavals going on around it.

Contemporary American Fiction in the European Classroom

Contemporary American Fiction in the European Classroom PDF Author: Laurence W. Mazzeno
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030941663
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Get Book

Book Description
This book offers insight into the ways students enrolled in European classrooms in higher education come to understand American experience through its literary fiction, which for decades has been a key component of English department offerings and American Studies curricula across the continent and in Great Britain and Ireland. The essays provide an understanding of how post-World War II American writers, some already elevated to ‘canonical status’ and some not, are represented in European university classrooms and why they have been chosen for inclusion in coursework. The book will be of interest to scholars and teachers of American literature and American studies, and to students in American literature and American studies courses.

The Falconer

The Falconer PDF Author: Dana Czapnik
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501193244
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
A New York Times Editor’s Choice Pick “A novel of huge heart and fierce intelligence. It has restored my faith in pretty much everything.” —Ann Patchett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth “[An] electric debut novel…Reader, beware: Spending time with Lucy is unapologetic fun, and heartbreak, and awe as well.” —Chloe Malle, The New York Times Book Review In this “frank, bittersweet coming-of-age story that crackles with raw adolescent energy, fresh-cut prose, and a kinetic sense of place” (Entertainment Weekly), a teenaged tomboy explores love, growing up, and New York City in the early 1990s. New York, 1993. Street-smart seventeen-year-old Lucy Adler is often the only girl on the public basketball courts. Lucy’s inner life is a contradiction. She’s by turns quixotic and cynical, insecure and self-possessed, and, despite herself, is in unrequited love with her best friend and pickup teammate, Percy, the rebellious son of a prominent New York family. As Lucy begins to question accepted notions of success, bristling against her own hunger for male approval, she is drawn into the world of a pair of provocative feminist artists living in what remains of New York’s bohemia. Told with wit and pathos, The Falconer is at once a novel of ideas, a portrait of a time and place, and an ode to the obsessions of youth. In her critically acclaimed debut, Dana Czapnik captures the voice of an unforgettable modern literary heroine, a young woman in the first flush of freedom.

The politics of male friendship in contemporary American fiction

The politics of male friendship in contemporary American fiction PDF Author: Michael Kalisch
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526156342
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Get Book

Book Description
How might our friendships shape our politics? This book examines how contemporary American fiction has rediscovered the concept of civic friendship and revived a long tradition of imagining male friendship as interlinked with the promises and paradoxes of democracy in the United States. Bringing into dialogue the work of a wide range of authors – including Philip Roth, Paul Auster, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Dinaw Mengestu, and Teju Cole – this innovative study advances a compelling new account of the political and intellectual fabric of the American novel today.

Middlesex

Middlesex PDF Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307401944
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 546

Get Book

Book Description
Spanning eight decades and chronicling the wild ride of a Greek-American family through the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, Jeffrey Eugenides’ witty, exuberant novel on one level tells a traditional story about three generations of a fantastic, absurd, lovable immigrant family -- blessed and cursed with generous doses of tragedy and high comedy. But there’s a provocative twist. Cal, the narrator -- also Callie -- is a hermaphrodite. And the explanation for this takes us spooling back in time, through a breathtaking review of the twentieth century, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie’s grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set our narrator’s life in motion. Middlesex is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. It’s a brilliant exploration of divided people, divided families, divided cities and nations -- the connected halves that make up ourselves and our world.

Apple in the Middle

Apple in the Middle PDF Author: Dawn Quigley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781946163219
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description
Young Adult Native American NovelApple Starkington turned her back on her Native American heritage the moment she was called a racial slur for someone of white and Indian descent, not that she really even knew how to be an Indian. Too bad the white world doesn't accept her either. And so begins her quirky habits to gain acceptance. Apple's name, chosen by her Indian mother on her deathbed, has a double meaning: treasured apple of my eye, but also the negative connotation-a person who is red, or Indian, on the outside, but white on the inside.After her wealthy father gives her the boot one summer, Apple reluctantly agrees to visit her Native American relatives on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota for the first time. Apple learns to deal with the culture shock of Indian customs and the Native Michif language, while she tries to deal with a vengeful Indian man who loved her mother in high school but now hates Apple because her mom married a white man.As Apple meets her Indian relatives, she shatters Indian stereotypes and learns what it means to find her place in a world divided by color.

The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction, 2 Volumes

The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction, 2 Volumes PDF Author: Patrick O'Donnell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119431719
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1607

Get Book

Book Description
Fresh perspectives and eye-opening discussions of contemporary American fiction In The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction: 1980-2020, a team of distinguished scholars delivers a focused and in-depth collection of essays on some of the most significant and influential authors and literary subjects of the last four decades. Cutting-edge entries from established and new voices discuss subjects as varied as multiculturalism, contemporary regionalisms, realism after poststructuralism, indigenous narratives, globalism, and big data in the context of American fiction from the last 40 years. The Encyclopedia provides an overview of American fiction at the turn of the millennium as well as a vision of what may come. It perfectly balances analysis, summary, and critique for an illuminating treatment of the subject matter. This collection also includes: An exciting mix of established and emerging contributors from around the world discussing central and cutting-edge topics in American fiction studies Focused, critical explorations of authors and subjects of critical importance to American fiction Topics that reflect the energies and tendencies of contemporary American fiction from the forty years between 1980 and 2020 The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction: 1980-2020 is a must-have resource for undergraduate and graduate students of American literature, English, creative writing, and fiction studies. It will also earn a place in the libraries of scholars seeking an authoritative array of contributions on both established and newer authors of contemporary fiction.

An Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction

An Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction PDF Author: Alan Bilton
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814799124
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book

Book Description
Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Cormac McCarthy, Rolando Hinojosa, E. Annie Proulx, Bret Easton Ellis, Douglas Coupland, and Thomas Pynchon: An Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction introduces the work of a range of key American authors, all of whom can be said to engage with postmodernism. Exploring the vitality and energy of contemporary writing in light of pessimistic proclamations on the state of postmodern American culture, Bilton highlights the tension between "realistic" description and linguistic self-consciousness in contemporary fiction. In addition, by addressing a central problem in literary theory—its neglect of literary discussion and the practice of reading—An Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction is able to present a working model for reading a text theoretically. As an introductory text, it assumes no prior knowledge of the authors of the novels discussed. To encourage understanding and aid further study, the following features are included: * GLOSSARY OF CRITICAL AND LITERARY TERMS * BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EACH AUTHOR'S WORKS * BIOGRAPHY OF EACH AUTHOR * GUIDE TO FURTHER READING * THEMATIC AND AUTHOR INDICES