Overview
Offers fresh readings of postwar suburban fiction by examining it in the context of contemporary critical discourses of the ethical turn in critical theory and spatial studies
Brings together a wide range of canonical and lesser-known suburban fiction, including John Cheever, Chang-rae Lee, John Updike, Gloria Naylor, and Don DeLillo
Provides new perspectives on questions of identity formation and community by demonstrating their contingency and continual negotiation in suburban fiction
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book reevaluates fiction devoted to the postwar American suburb, examining the way these works imagine suburbia as a communal structure designed to advance a particular American identity. Postmodern Suburban Spaces surveys works by both canonical chroniclers of the middle class experience, such as Richard Yates and John Cheever, and those who reflect suburbia’s demographic reality, including Gloria Naylor and Chang-rae Lee, to uncover a surprising reconfiguration of the suburban experience. Tracing major forms of suburban associations – racial divisions, property lines, the family, and ethnic fealty – these works depict a different mode of interaction than the stereotypical white picket fences. Joseph George draws from philosophers such as Emmanuel Levinas and Roberto Esposito to argue that these fictions assert a critical hospitality that frustrates the limited forms of association on which suburbia is based. This fiction, in turn, posits an ethical form of community that comes about when people share space together.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Postmodern Suburban Spaces
Book Subtitle: Philosophy, Ethics, and Community in Post-War American Fiction
Authors: Joseph George
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41006-7
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-41005-0Published: 03 November 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-82239-6Published: 23 June 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-41006-7Published: 20 October 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 206
Topics: North American Literature, Twentieth-Century Literature, Postmodern Literature