Writing America into the Twenty-First Century

Book excerpt: Writing America into the Twenty-First Century: Essays on the American Novel seeks to explore an exciting period in American literary scholarship. Concentrating on novels written after 1990 and through to the new millennium and to the present day, this collection presents a refreshing and much-needed analysis of recent American fiction. Representing the work of established scholars and emerging critical voices, the essays interrogate a range of fiction including works by Philip Roth, Jeffrey Eugenides, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Cormac McCarthy. Accessible to students, scholars and the interested reader, this invigorating collection navigates the works of several key male American authors of the last twenty years and, in so doing, offers a new way of examining the American novel. This volume’s strength lies in its careful academic focus on recent American fiction and seeks to re-acquaint the reader with well-known authors and introduce them to new literary voices such as Christopher John Farley, Anthony Giardina and Daniel Suarez. The collection is organised into four large topic areas: ‘Youth and Age,’ ‘War and Crime,’ ‘Culture’ and ‘Spaces and Patterns.’ Each essay deals with its own particular subject and author but the full impact of each section on the concept of writing the American novel into the present day can only really be understood when read in conjunction with the others. Writing America, a companion volume to Reading America: New Perspectives on the American Novel (2008) would be a valuable asset to any university or branch library. The volume will also attract strong interest from established academics, especially those researching the fields of literature, critical theory, cultural history and politics.