Mass-Market Fiction and the Crisis of American Liberalism, 1972–2017

255 Pages·2018·2.515 MB·English

by  Michael J. Blouin

Mass-Market Fiction and the Crisis of American
Liberalism, 1972–2017
Michael J. Blouin
Mass-Market Fiction
and the Crisis of
American Liberalism,
1972–2017
Michael J. Blouin
English and the Humanities
Milligan College
Johnson City, TN, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-89386-0 ISBN 978-3-319-89387-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89387-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937876
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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To Kate
With Love
A
cknowledgements
Countless hands shaped this book. I wish to take a moment to express
gratitude to some of the individuals that supported me as it came to
fruition. Of course, any missteps in the pages to follow are mine alone.
My partner Kate awes me on a daily basis with her dedication to social
justice. Her love and grace give me strength. Her personal commitments
give me courage. Without her, this book would not exist.
My mother Melissa first revealed to me what empathy looks like. She
showed me what it looks like to stand up for noble causes. Her kindness
and generosity greatly influence the pages that follow.
My daughter Emerson moves me to pursue a better future. She fills
me with profound hopefulness. I love you, baby girl.
A number of thoughtful readers commented upon chapter drafts.
Patricia Ventura helped me to organize and to set firm foundations;
Mary Beth Pringle reminded me to seek clarity; Tony Magistrale
pushed me to appreciate the trees before dwelling on the forest; Scott
Michaelsen forced me to find focus when I wandered; and David Stowe
guided me into higher degrees of nuance. In addition, I am extremely
grateful for the professionalism of the peer reviewers and editorial staff at
Palgrave Macmillan.
During the process of writing this book, I was humbled by the acu-
men of individuals that make up my various communities. While serving
as a chair for the regular panel “Neoliberalism in Literature and Media
Studies” at the annual conference of the Southern Atlantic Modern
Literature Association, I learned much from insightful panelists. While
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
serving as a guest editor for the special issue of The Journal of Popular
Culture entitled “Neoliberalism and Popular Culture” (April 2018), I
broadened my knowledge on the subject thanks to the opportunity to
reflect upon brilliant critical work by a diverse range of authors. My col-
leagues in the Humanities at Milligan College motivate me with their
tireless effort. They hold me up with their unwavering support.
Finally, I am grateful for my students. They never cease to surprise me
with their open-mindedness, their engagement, as well as their longing
to change the world. They prompt me to speak more clearly and cul-
tivate a more inclusive vision. To students, past and present: I remain
indebted to you.
c
ontents
1 Introduction: Popular Paperbacks
and the Transformation of American Liberalism 1
Part I The Neoliberal Turn
2 The Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic
of Mass-Market Fiction 37
3 Danielle Steel and New Home Economics 75
4 Michael Crichton and the Heritage of Invention 113
Part II Conjunctures
5 Tom Clancy and the Liberal Family Tree 147
6 John Grisham and the New Economy Thriller 177
7 Dean Koontz and the Problem with Power 211
Index 245
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Popular Paperbacks
and the Transformation
of American Liberalism
The crisis of American liberalism has reached a fever pitch. The term
“liberal” that I use here is not synonymous with “progressive.” Broadly
speaking, liberals support individual autonomy and limited state inter-
vention. For ardent supporters of liberalism, the inauguration of Donald
Trump in 2017 signals a society in disarray. For its vociferous critics, the
election serves as a prime opportunity to engage in radical reform. These
reports of the death of liberalism may prove to be hyperbolic. Yet the
relative consensus of the post-World War II era does lie in tatters. Angry
voices cry out for dramatic overhaul. Has the long, strange journey of
American liberalism reached its terminal point?
Over the course of the twentieth century, liberalism in the United
States is relentlessly Balkanized—neoconservatism, neoliberalism, New
Democrats, the Tea Party, and so forth. As of 2017, what does liberal-
ism mean? Where do traditional tenets remain and where are they trans-
formed? Mass-Market Fiction and the Crisis of American Liberalism,
1972–2017 explores crucial concerns of a liberalism in crisis: the idea
of love and the rise of the financial sector (Danielle Steel); science and
the role of centralized planning (Michael Crichton); entangled political
alliances in the aftermath of the 1960s (Tom Clancy); the anxiety and
promise of corporate re-structuring (John Grisham); the line between
government and personal empowerment (Dean Koontz). At a global
level, this book explores how mass-market fiction informs—and is
© The Author(s) 2018 1
M. J. Blouin, Mass-Market Fiction and the Crisis
of American Liberalism, 1972–2017,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89387-7_1
2 M. J. BLOUIN
informed by—the re-shaping as well as dismantlement of liberal institu-
tions. At a local level, this book examines the ways in which these large-
scale metamorphoses manifest in private spheres.
With an unofficial tally of over 1.2 billion copies sold and counting,
the works considered herein consistently perch atop all-time bestselling
lists. One might reasonably assume that readers choose these specific
texts due to their clarity, accessibility, and coherence. These traits remain
useful indices of cultural intelligibility. The novels that I analyze serve as
ideal sites for tracking the readability (or incongruity) of political senti-
ments in the contemporary United States.
The sustained popularity of the authors in question over the last fifty
years parallels what literary critics Mitchell Huehls and Rachel Greenwald
Smith designate as the four phases of recent liberal development. The
success of these authors generally begins in the economic phase of the
1970s—at the end of the gold standard and the eruption of speculative
finance. It endures through the second stage of the 1980s, in which eco-
nomic changes extend in a granular fashion into nonmarket domains.
These authors remain highly relevant into the third stage of the 1990s
in which literature is infiltrated by market rationality (a perspective that
conceives of every encounter through the lens of economic exchange
while upholding the premise that an unregulated marketplace is always
both rational and beneficial). Finally, the celebrity of these figures lin-
gers into the latest stage, in which literature increasingly correlates with
“a mode of existence defined by individual self-responsibility, entrepre-
neurial action, and the maximization of human capital” (Huehls and
Smith, 6–10). To analyze the respective canons of these popular writers
is to glimpse how an enormous number of readers are encouraged to
make sense of a new-look liberalism.
In one sense, the form as well as the content of these popular novels
retain shadows of homogeneity from mid-century American life. Mass-
production elicits memories of mighty technocracies that churn out
hegemonic wares. Many critics of these novels subsequently slide into
a critical mold established by the Frankfurt School. While this mode of
interpretation continues to yield valuable insights, it risks missing the fact
that capital is no longer restrained by mid-century regulations. The first
half of the book addresses this turn.
The contradictory character of mass-market fiction reflects a reforma-
tion. Cheap paperbacks are sold alongside sundry baubles in the check-
out aisle. Their increased volatility (based upon weekly bestseller lists and
online metrics, a book must survive or be usurped by competitors) as well