Writing the Past in Twenty-first-century American Fiction
Author(s)
Lawrie, Alexandra
Collection
Knowledge Unlatched (KU)Language
EnglishAbstract
Writing 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.
Keywords
Literary Criticism; Modern; 21st CenturyISBN
9781474463447, 9781474463478, 9781474463461Publisher
Edinburgh University PressPublisher website
https://www.euppublishing.com/Publication date and place
2022Grantor
Imprint
Edinburgh University PressClassification
Literary studies: general