0 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
torical, and biographical contexts for the readings, while the section “A Casebook
of Postmodern Theory” suggests connections between fiction and literary theory.
James R. Giles, The Spaces of Violence (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
2006).
Examines connections between violence and physical space in works by Russell
Banks, Cormac McCarthy, Lewis Nordan, Dorothy Allison, Don DeLillo, Denis
Johnson, Sherman Alexie, Robert Stone, Bret Easton Ellis, Jane Smiley, Toni
Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, and Chuck Palahniuk.
Giles, Violence in the Contemporary American Novel: An End to Innocence (Colum-
bia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000).
A study of eight contemporary American urban novels in which writers convey a
sense of violence as an epidemic that threatens American society.
Daniel Grassian, Hybrid Fictions: American Literature and Generation X ( Jefferson,
N.C.: McFarland, 2003).
Argues for the emergence of a generation of American writers born from the
late 1950s to the early 1970s—David Foster Wallace, Neal Stephenson, Douglas
Coupland, Sherman Alexie, William T. Vollmann, and Dave Eggers—whose
most distinctive characteristic is hybridity in psychological, philosophical, ethnic,
and technological terms. Grassian also discusses the impact of the Internet and
hypertext on the future of fiction.
Richard J. Gray, A History of American Literature (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell,
2004).
Accessible overview of American literature and its social and historical contexts,
covering a broad range of genres and periods from Native American oral tradi-
tions to contemporary works. Chapter 5, “Negotiating the American Century:
American Literature since 1945,” examines recent developments such as Post-
modernism and multiculturalism.
Gray, “Open Doors, Closed Minds: American Prose Writing at a Time of Crisis,”
American Literary History, 21 (Spring 2009): 128–148.
Identifies narrative techniques and structures—some effective, others not—that
writers use to represent contemporary American identity in response to the
increasing internationalization of American culture and to events such as 9/11
and the “war on terror.” This essay is especially useful for students wishing to
identify works responding to 9/11 and its aftermath.
Lee Gutkind, ed., In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction (New York: Norton,
2005).
Collection of twenty-five essays originally published in the journal Creative Non-
f iction (established in 1995). An introductory essay by the editor, “The Creative
Nonfiction Police?” explores the controversies surrounding this emerging genre
and the differences between fiction and nonfiction.
Josephine G. Hendin, ed., A Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature
and Culture (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004).