Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
Aggressive Fictions : Reading the Contemporary American Novel, Hardback Book

Aggressive Fictions : Reading the Contemporary American Novel Hardback

Hardback

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks

Description

A frequent complaint against contemporary American fiction is that too often it puts off readers in ways they find difficult to fathom.

Books such as Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, and Don DeLillo's Underworld seem determined to upset, disgust, or annoy their readers—or to disorient them by shunning traditional plot patterns and character development.

Kathryn Hume calls such works "aggressive fiction." Why would authors risk alienating their readers—and why should readers persevere?

Looking beyond the theory-based justifications that critics often provide for such fiction, Hume offers a commonsense guide for the average reader who wants to better understand and appreciate books that might otherwise seem difficult to enjoy.

In her reliable and sympathetic guide, Hume considers roughly forty works of recent American fiction, including books by William Burroughs, Kathy Acker, Chuck Palahniuk, and Cormac McCarthy.

Hume gathers "attacks" on the reader into categories based on narrative structure and content.

Writers of some aggressive fictions may wish to frustrate easy interpretation or criticism.

Others may try to induce certain responses in readers.

Extreme content deployed as a tactic for distancing and alienating can actually produce a contradictory effect: for readers who learn to relax and go with the flow, the result may well be exhilaration rather than revulsion.

Information

Other Formats

Save 13%

£50.00

£43.15

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
Add to Basket
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information