Argues for a reawakened commitment to historicity in contemporary American fiction 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. Alexandra Lawrie is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh.
| Author: Alexandra Lawrie |
| Publisher: Edinburgh University Press |
| Publication Date: May 31, 2024 |
| Number of Pages: NA pages |
| Language: English |
| Binding: Paperback |
| ISBN-10: 1474463452 |
| ISBN-13: 9781474463454 |