The American Novel Now: Reading Contemporary American Fiction Since 1980 PDF
Preview The American Novel Now: Reading Contemporary American Fiction Since 1980
The American Novel Now The American Novel Now Reading Contemporary American Fiction Since 1980 Patrick O’Donnell A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication This edition fi rst published 2010 © 2010 Patrick O’Donnell Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientifi c, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Offi ce John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offi ces 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148–5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offi ces, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Patrick O’Donnell to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data O’Donnell, Patrick, 1948– The American novel now : contemporary American fi ction since 1980 / Patrick O’Donnell. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-6757-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4051-6755-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. American fi ction–20th century–History and criticism. 2. Literature and society–United States–History–20th century. 3. Literature and history–United States– History–20th century. I. Title. II. Title: Contemporary American fi ction since 1980. PS379.O35 2010 813′.5409–dc22 2009030168 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 10.5 on 13 pt Galliard by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited Printed in Malaysia 1 2010 For Kaylee and Caiden, future readers Contents Preface viii Acknowledgments xii Part I: Before 1980 1 Part II: From New Realisms to Postmodernism 34 “This American Life” 35 “Dirty Realisms” 46 Only Wor(l)ds 56 Magnifying Reality, Multiplying Genre 67 Part III: Becoming Identities 80 Reinventing Character 82 Racing Identity 92 Engendering Narrative 104 Toward the Posthuman 115 Part IV: What Happened to History? 124 The Past is Prologue 126 Tunneling In 132 Imagining Epoch 136 Another History 146 Narrating Vietnam 150 Catastrophe: The Ends of History 162 Part V: Relations Stopping Nowhere 172 The Postnuclear Family 173 The Reach of Community 187 From There to Here: Migration and Nation 199 Epilogue 213 Notes 216 References 220 Index 228 Preface The narrative that follows, like any narrative, is full of gaps, elisions, inclusions and exclusions. I have been teaching contemporary Ameri- can fi ction to undergraduate and graduate students for over thirty years, and if there is an overriding lesson taught by the remarkable proliferation of styles, subjects, experiments in genre, innovations, and revisions of tradition that have taken place in the American novel since World War II, it is that any attempt to encompass the fi eld of this work or to treat it as a totality is foolhardy. More to the point, such an effort would run counter to what the fi ction itself teaches us: that we live in an increasingly complex world where language and the distortions of language, identity and its discontents, speech, object and affect are only apprehensible in their specifi city and within the particu- lar contexts they inhabit, and only then by means of the partial view that pertains to being human at a time when “ the human ” itself is under question. The best work of the imagination attends fi rst to the particular, compelling the reader to enlarge her or his worldly perspec- tive as the consequence of a local reading. A narrative that attempts to draw out several of the signifi cant fi la- ments of the contemporary American novel since 1980 will, of neces- sity, shed light on the few rather than the many, but with the intention to focus on the few that offer exemplary instances of what will emerge in the long view of literary history over time as paradigmatic develop- ments. The reader is cautioned that only a fraction of the contempo- rary American novelists since the late 1970s he or she may consider interesting or signifi cant are discussed or cited in this volume: even just mentioning in a sentence or two all of the contemporary American
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