Writing the Past in Twenty-First-Century American Fiction

By Alexandra Lawrie

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1474463444
• ISBN13: 9781474463447
• Release Date: September 2022
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.2"