Since the 1960s, academics have theorized that literature is on its way to becoming obsolete or, at the very least, has lost part of its power as an influential medium of social and cultural critique. This work argues against that misconception and maintains that contemporary American literature is not only alive and well but has grown in significant ways that reflect changes in American culture during the last twenty years.
In addition, this work argues that beginning in the 1980s, a new, allied generation of American writers, born from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, has emerged, whose hybrid fiction blend distinct elements of previous American literary movements and contain divided social, cultural and ethnic allegiances. The author explores psychological, philosophical, ethnic and technological hybridity. The author also argues for the importance of and need for literature in contemporary America and considers its future possibilities in the realms of the Internet and hypertext. David Foster Wallace, Neal Stephenson, Douglas Coupland, Sherman Alexie, William Vollmann, Michele Serros and Dave Eggers are among the writers whose hybrid fictions are discussed.

Daniel Grassian lives in Los Angeles, California.

Daniel Grassian
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 207
Bibliographic Info: notes, references, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2003
pISBN: 978-0-7864-1632-5
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8358-7
Imprint: McFarland

Introduction      1

1 From Modernists to Gen Xers      7
2 Hybrid Desires      33
3 Hybrid Identities and Conflicting Relationships      78
4 Ethnic Hybridity      100
5 Hybrid Technologies      125
6 Hypertext, the Internet and the Future of Printed Fiction      166

Notes      179
Bibliography      191
Index      197

“this study enriches the reader…highly recommended”—Library Journal; “intelligent…recommended”—Choice.