After the end of history [[electronic resource] ] : American fiction in the 1990s / / Samuel Cohen

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910791135303321
• Autore: Cohen Samuel S
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Iowa City, : University of Iowa Press, 2009
• ISBN: 1-58729-890-2
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (249 p.)
• Disciplina: 813.5409; 813/.5409
• Soggetti: American fiction - 20th century - History and criticism; Literature and history - United States - History - 20th century
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: CONTENTS; Acknowledgments; Introduction: The End of History; 1. After Enlightenment: Mason & Dixon and the Ampersand; 2. After the Fall: Roth and the 1960's; 3. After Identity: Morrison and Genealogy; 4. How to Tell a True Cold War Story: O'Brien, Didion, and Closure; 5. History Is What Heals: 9/11 and Narrative in Eugenides and Lethem; Afterword: DeLillo and the Anticipation of Retrospection; Notes; Works Cited; Index
• Sommario/riassunto: In this bold book, Samuel Cohen asserts the literary and historical importance of the period between the fall of the Berlin wall and that of the Twin Towers in New York. With refreshing clarity, he examines six 1990's novels and two post-9/11 novels that explore the impact of the end of the Cold War: Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, Roth's American Pastoral, Morrison's Paradise, O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods, Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted, Eugenides's Middlesex, Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, and DeLillo's Underworld. Cohen emphasizes how these works reconnect the past to a present that is iro