A Dangerous Fiction

Masculinity is one of the key issues at stake in contemporary writing and gender studies. In their novels, Michael Chabon and Tom Wolfe both consistently make masculinity a prominent thematic and ideological concern. This study is the first full length scholarly work to take their work and their treatment of masculinity as its focus. How do these American authors critique the representation of masculinity within popular culture in Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Summerland, A Man in Full and The Bonfire of the Vanities? How do popular images of masculinity function for individual men and the way they experience their masculinities? A Dangerous Fiction investigates the ways in which Chabon and Wolfe strip masculinity of any illusion of an essential nature and expose it as something highly culturally dependent and explains how these novels suggest to understand masculinity in the contemporary world.

Autorentext

Louise Colbran studied English Literature and completed her PhD at Macquarie University, Sydney, and has contributed scholarly articles to Aethlon and the collection Remaking Literary History. Her research interests include the American novel, gender and popular culture. She is currently an Associate Lecturer in the English Department at Macquarie University, Sydney.

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Contents: A Multiplicity of Selves: The Function of Authorial Celebrity and the Evaluation of the Author in the novels of Chabon and Wolfe - Playing at Being Men: Sport in Wolfe's A Man in Full and The Bonfire of the Vanities and Chabon's Summerland - Not So Super-Men: Superheroes and Heroes in Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Summerland and Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities- The Masculine Mystique: Contextualising Masculinity within Spiritual Discourse in Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Summerland and Wolfe's A Man in Full - A Grand Illusion: Hegemonic Masculinity as Escapism in the Novels of Chabon and Wolfe.