The New American Novel of Manners: The Fiction of Richard Yates, Dan Wakefield, and Thomas McGuane
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Description
In the 1960s, as the underpinnings of society weakened, the traditional novel form seemed less suited to describe American reality. Theorists groped towards non-mimetic fiction as the tools that had sustained the novel since its birth—coherent characterization, linear plot, symbolism—became tools of New Journalism. The New American Novel of Manners explores the virtual reinvention of the novel of manners in America out of the same subjectivity that charged the works of New Journalism. In place of the rigid social structures that never seemed to depict America, novelists such as Richard Yates, Dan Wakefield, and Thomas McGuane located America’s modern-day manners in its semiotics, in the system of signs that envelops us—the blue jeans people wear, the fast food they eat, the décor of the bars they drink in and the rock-and-roll lyrics that play through memories. The new generation of mannerists describe lifestyles that are determined by words and images, by actions that are dictated by what has been read and seen, and patterns of behavior in which life is edited and fictionalized. Klinkowitz reveals a fiction that is once again capable of reflecting the way people live. -- Provided by publisher
Keywords
American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Manners and customs in literature; Yates, Richard, 1926-1992 -- Criticism and interpretation; Wakefield, Dan -- Criticism and interpretation; McGuane, Thomas -- Criticism and interpretation;
Document Type
Book
ISBN
9780820308173
Publication Date
1986
Publisher
University of Georgia Press
City
Athens, GA
Department
Department of Languages and Literatures
Object Description
x, 176 p. ; 23 cm
Language
en
Recommended Citation
Klinkowitz, Jerome, "The New American Novel of Manners: The Fiction of Richard Yates, Dan Wakefield, and Thomas McGuane" (1986). Faculty Book Gallery. 250.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/facbook/250
