Writing the Past in Twenty-first-century American Fiction / / Alexandra Lawrie.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
• VerfasserIn: Lawrie, Alexandra,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (208 p.)

Argues for a reawakened commitment to historicity in contemporary American fictionIncludes brand new and intensive readings of contemporary novels by the foremost American writers of the twenty-first centuryCombines detailed contextual discussion with close readings of the novelsPlaces historical events in dialogue with twenty-first-century contextsWriting the Past in Twenty-First-Century American Fiction examines contemporary novels profoundly shaped by a sense of historical consciousness. Authors including Ben Lerner, Colson Whitehead, Dana Spiotta, Hari Kunzru and Garth Greenwell each use flashbacks, historical parallels and non-sequential narrative arrangements to emphasise the re-emergence, in a twenty-first-century context, of historical structures and circumstances. This study explores how these frequent moments of temporal slippage amount to a ‘falling out of time’, as characters are forced to confront the past crises which continue to exert pressure on their own contemporary moment.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1. Historical Racism and Contemporary Incarceration in C. E. Morgan and Hari Kunzru -- 2. Ben Lerner and Literary Antecedents of the City -- 3. Dana Spiotta and Political Commitment -- 4. AIDS Activism and Looking Back in Tim Murphy and Garth Greenwell -- 5. Anxious Futures in Colson Whitehead and Omar El Akkad -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index