The American Novel Now: Reading Contemporary American Fiction Since 1980
Author(s):
First published:15 January 2010
Print ISBN:9781405167574 |Online ISBN:9781444317893 |DOI:10.1002/9781444317893
Copyright © 2010 Patrick O'Donnell
Reviews
"In this extremely accessible discussion, O'Donnell (Michigan State Univ.) reveals
his as an authoritative voice on novels from the 1980s to present. His selections
are, by his own admission, eclectic: he writes in the introduction that he "chose
to discuss, where appropriate, both widely read novels published by the mainstream
commercial presses and less visible, often experimental work published by independent
presses." He looks at work from more than 70 authors, including central figures of
the American literary canon--Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, Louise Erdrich, and Don
DeLillo, to name only a few. O'Donnell divides the book (and his approach) into five
distinctive parts, discussing, respectively, work leading to the 1980s; realism and
experimentation; identity, as it pertains to character--gender, ethnicity, and so
on; historicity and "end times"; and social emergence within the novel. All this leads
to an intriguing "excursus that speculates on the future of the novel." This is a
comprehensive discussion of the novel and present circumstances influencing it--an
interesting study on many levels." (CHOICE, December 2010)
"The American Novel Now provides an accessible introduction to the many strands of post-1980 American fiction." (TLS, June 2010)
Author Bios
Patrick O'Donnell is Professor of English and American Literature at Michigan
State University, where he served as department chair from 1997 to 2007. He has written
and edited a number of books and collections on contemporary American fiction and
film, including Latent Destinies: Cultural Paranoia in Contemporary U.S. Fiction
(2000), Echo Chambers: Figuring Voice in Modern Narrative (1992), Passionate
Doubts: Designs of Interpretation in Contemporary American Fiction (1986),
and New Essays on The Crying of Lot 49 (edited, 1991). He is an associate editor
of The Columbia History of the American Novel (1991), a former editor of Modern
Fiction Studies, and a co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American
Fiction (forthcoming from Wiley-Blackwell).