21st Century US Historical Fiction : Contemporary Responses to the Past

This new collection examines important US historical fiction published since 2000. Exploring historical novels by established American writers such as Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, E.L. Doctorow, Chang-rae Lee, James McBride, Susan Choi, and George Saunders, the book also includes chapters on first-time novelists. Individual essays in __21st Century US Historical Fiction: Contemporary Responses to the Past__ tackle prominent and provocative new novels, for example, recent Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction by Anthony Doerr, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Colson Whitehead. Interrogating such key themes as war, race, sexuality, trauma and childhood; notions of genre and periodization; and recent theorizations of historical fiction, scholars from the United States, Canada, Britain and Ireland analyze an emerging canon of contemporary historical fiction by an ethno-racially diverse range of major American writers. Acknowledgments 6 Contents 7 Notes on Contributors 10 1 US Historical Fiction Since 2000 13 Bibliography 24 Part I Imagining 19th-century America in Recent Historical Fiction 27 2 Folklore, Fakelore, and the History of the Dream: James McBride’s Song Yet Sung 28 Bibliography 42 3 To “Refract Time”: The Magical History of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad 44 Plot Devices, Marketing Devices 44 Contouring the Textual Past(s) 50 The “Buxom Best-Seller” and the “Oprah Effect” 54 Bibliography 61 4 Growing Up Too Quickly: The Cultural Construction of Children in Lyndsay Faye’s Gods of Gotham Trilogy 64 Bibliography 81 5 “Everyone, We Are Dead!”: (Hi)story and Power in George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo 84 Bibliography 101 Part II Representations of the 20th-Century United States 103 6 “We Cannot Create”: The Limits of History in Joyce Carol Oates’s The Accursed 104 Bibliography 119 7 “Key Clacks and Bell Dings and Slamming Platens”: The Historical and Narrative Function of Music in E. L. Doctorow’s Homer and Langley 120 Bibliography 136 8 Archive Future: Trauma and the Child in Two Contemporary American Bestsellers 138 Archive Fever 140 Archive Fiction 142 Archive Future 153 Bibliography 155 9 Creating a Usable Past: Writing the Korean War in Contemporary American Fiction 157 Introduction: Containing the Korean War in Fiction 157 Indignation as Jewish American War Memorial 159 The Surrendered: Foregrounding Korean Suffering 165 Conclusion: Forging a Usable Past 172 Bibliography 174 10 Paternity, History, and Misrepresentation in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer 178 Bibliography 195 11 Queering the “Lost Year”: Transcription and the Lesbian Continuum in Susan Choi’s American Woman 197 Bibliography 213 12 The Contemporary Sixties Novel: Post-postmodernism and Historiographic Metafiction 214 Narrative Problems 216 The Post-postmodern, Post-boomer Sixties Novel 218 The Invisible Circus 219 Eat the Document 220 Trance 223 Contemporary Historical Fiction 224 Bibliography 231 13 “What’s the Plot, Man?”: Alternate History and the Sense of an Ending in David Means’ Hystopia 233 Bibliography 247 14 “To Avenging My People”: Speculating Revenge for US Slavery in Dwayne Alexander Smith’s Forty Acres 249 Forty Acres: A Thriller, or a Speculative Revenge Narrative 251 “Revenge Is an Essential Human Trait” 255 “Black Noise” or Black Rage 264 Bibliography 267 Index 268 Front Matter ....Pages i-xv US Historical Fiction Since 2000 (Ruth Maxey)....Pages 1-14 Front Matter ....Pages 15-15 Folklore, Fakelore, and the History of the Dream: James McBride’s Song Yet Sung (Judie Newman)....Pages 17-32 To “Refract Time”: The Magical History of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (Michael Docherty)....Pages 33-52 Growing Up Too Quickly: The Cultural Construction of Children in Lyndsay Faye’s Gods of Gotham Trilogy (James Peacock)....Pages 53-72 “Everyone, We Are Dead!”: (Hi)story and Power in George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo (Clare Hayes-Brady)....Pages 73-91 Front Matter ....Pages 93-93 “We Cannot Create”: The Limits of History in Joyce Carol Oates’s The Accursed (Rachael McLennan)....Pages 95-110 “Key Clacks and Bell Dings and Slamming Platens”: The Historical and Narrative Function of Music in E. L. Doctorow’s Homer and Langley (Villy Karagouni)....Pages 111-128 Archive Future: Trauma and the Child in Two Contemporary American Bestsellers (Aimee Pozorski)....Pages 129-147 Creating a Usable Past: Writing the Korean War in Contemporary American Fiction (Ruth Maxey)....Pages 149-169 Paternity, History, and Misrepresentation in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer (Debra Shostak)....Pages 171-189 Queering the “Lost Year”: Transcription and the Lesbian Continuum in Susan Choi’s American Woman (Rebecca Martin)....Pages 191-207 The Contemporary Sixties Novel: Post-postmodernism and Historiographic Metafiction (Mark West)....Pages 209-227 “What’s the Plot, Man?”: Alternate History and the Sense of an Ending in David Means’ Hystopia (Diletta De Cristofaro)....Pages 229-244 “To Avenging My People”: Speculating Revenge for US Slavery in Dwayne Alexander Smith’s Forty Acres (DeLisa D. Hawkes)....Pages 245-263 Back Matter ....Pages 265-275 'Working usefully against contemporary critical trends, Ruth Maxey's collection posits similarities between the historical novel and postmodern narratives. Each of the essays is enlightening; each persuades. A must-have collection.' - Linda Wagner-Martin, Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English & Comparative Literature, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA. This new collection examines important US historical fiction published since 2000. Exploring historical novels by established American writers such as Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, E.L. Doctorow, Chang-rae Lee, James McBride, Susan Choi, and George Saunders, the book also includes chapters on first-time novelists. Individual essays in 21st Century US Historical Fiction: Contemporary Responses to the Past tackle prominent and provocative new novels: for example, recent Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction by Anthony Doerr, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Colson Whitehead. Interrogating such key themes as war, race, sexuality, trauma and childhood; notions of genre and periodization; and recent theorizations of historical fiction, scholars from the United States, Canada, Britain and Ireland analyze an emerging canon of contemporary historical fiction by an ethno-racially diverse range of major American writers