The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern American Fiction

This Companion is an authoritative, comprehensive, and accessible guide to postmodern American fiction. An indispensable resource for students, scholars, and the general reader, the volume examines the principal genres of postmodern American fiction in their historical and cultural contexts, provides illuminating critical frameworks, and offers concise, compelling readings of key works.

Few previous periods in the history of American literature could rival the richness of the postmodern era - the diversity of its authors, the complexity of its ideas and visions, and the multiplicity of its subjects and forms. This volume offers an authoritative, comprehensive, and accessible guide to the American fiction of this remarkable period. It traces the development of postmodern American fiction over the past half-century and explores its key aesthetic, cultural, and political contexts. It examines its principal styles and genres, from the early experiments with metafiction to the most recent developments, such as the graphic novel and digital fiction, and offers concise, compelling readings of many of its major works. An indispensable resource for students, scholars, and the general reader, the Companion both highlights the extraordinary achievements of postmodern American fiction and provides illuminating critical frameworks for understanding it.