Desire and Disillusionment

Lawrence E. Hussman examines selected novels and short stories of fifty major American fiction writers from Stephen Crane to Junot Diaz. The reader will also find references to American politics, history, and popular culture in the book.

Desire and Disillusionment: A Guide to American Fiction Since 1890 departs from the typical academic study in that it appeals to the general reading public, undergraduate and graduate students, and literary scholars. The book's focus on a highly relatable subject, longing and loss, its running plot summaries, and lucid presentation account for this broad appeal. Lawrence E. Hussman examines selected novels and short stories of fifty major American fiction writers from Stephen Crane to Junot Diaz. The reader will also find references to American politics, history, and popular culture in the book. Additionally, the author's decidedly original, provocative critical approach delivers new insights that will reshape thinking about American literature as a reflection of the nation's way of life. Literary critics will find the discussion of naturalism as a bridge to modernism and postmodernism especially enlightening. Furthermore, the book includes a summary of ideas about desire from the ancient philosophers to today's scientists who study the brain. Desire and Disillusionment can serve as a stimulating textbook in American literature, history, or philosophy classes.

Autorentext

Lawrence E. Hussman is Professor Emeritus of English at Wright State University. He is the author of numerous scholarly essays and influential, highly acclaimed books focusing on the fiction of Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris. Moreover, he has written two works of popular nonfiction, Counterterrorist and Danger s Disciple. He holds a doctorate in English from the University of Michigan and, in addition to his academic career in the United States, he has taught American literature in Europe as a Fulbright scholar and as a visiting professor.

Inhalt

Contents: The Provenance of Longing Preamble: American Desire and Literary Naturalism Writers: Stephen Crane (1871 1900), Frank Norris (1870 1902), Kate Chopin (1851 1904), Theodore Dreiser (1871 1945), Jack London (1876 1916), Edith Wharton (1862 1937), Willa Cather (1873 1947), Sherwood Anderson (1876 1941), Sinclair Lewis (1885 1951) Carson McCullers (1917 1967), Katherine Anne Porter (1890 1980), F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 1940), William Faulkner (1897 1962), Ernest Hemingway (1899 1961), John Steinbeck (1902 1968), John Dos Passos (1896 1970) Nathanael West (1903 1940), James T. Farrell (1904 1979), Zora Neale Hurston (1891 1960), Richard Wright (1908 1960), Flannery O Connor (1925 1964), E. B. White (1899 1985), Walker Percy (1916 1990), Vladimir Nabokov (1899 1977), J.D. Salinger (1919 2010), Truman Capote (1924 1984), Saul Bellow (1915 2005), Evan S. Connell (1924 2013), James Baldwin (1924 1987), Richard Yates (1926 1992), John Updike (1932 2009), Norman Mailer (1923 2007), Philip Roth (1933), John Cheever (1912 1982), Wallace Stegner (1909 1993), William Styron (1925 2006), Toni Morrison (1931), Cormac McCarthy (1933), N. Scott Momaday (1934), Annie Proulx (11935), Don DeLillo (1936), Raymond Carver (1938 1988), Joyce Carol Oates (1938), Bharati Mukherjee (1940), John Irving (1942), Lee Smith (1944), Jane Smiley (1949), Jay McInerney (1955), Elizabeth Strout (1956), Junot Díaz (1968) Conclusion: Past as Future Afterword: A Call to Contentment.