With social and political issues providing the foreground of literary studies over the past several years, William Dean Howells has re-emerged as a major author. Yet, among canonical American writers, Howells simultaneously attracts both significant attention and curious neglect. While studies devoted to his novels, The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Hazard of New Fortunes, are proliferating, the attention paid to his later writing, particularly his short fiction, is not only far less sustained but often dismissive, promoting a continuous inattention to the process by which the author discovers new forms and expression. William Dean Howells and the American Memory Crisis confronts the frequent refusal to see Howells as a writer whose lifelong engagement with literature pushed him through generic boundaries in search of new ways of shaping his fiction and questioning American identity. By focusing on Howellss preoccupation with tropes of memory and amnesia, this book positions his work within the American memory crisis, the turn-of-the-centurys pervasive feelings of fragmentation, loss, and dislocation that followed breathtaking transformations in the pace of everyday life and traditional social structures, which contributed to the sense that the linear inheritance of the past was severely weakened, if not broken beyond repair. As Americans engaged in a politics of memorywith various groups battling for their stake in shaping Americas present and future by defining its pastHowellss work interacts with a number of social discourses and practices through which national identity was being (re)constructed and debated. The book explores these sites of memory, including historiography, therhetoric of imperialism, the revival in historical romantic fiction, the rise of photography, the boom in monument construction, the beginnings of modern advertising, the interest in spiritualism and the occult, and literary history itself. By focusing on two neglected areas of Howells studieshis late short fiction and his engagement in the politics of memoryWilliam Dean Howells and the American Memory Crisis clarifies the convergence of his aesthetic and political goals and challenges recent innovative studies that situate Howells and literary realism as reinforcing late-nineteenth-century hierarchies of race, class, and gender. As a major figure of the traditional canon, Howells routinely has been positioned as a powerful cultural authority who was either deceptive of his real goals, willfully hypocritical, or ignorant of the actual political scene in which he was working. Rubins book complicates some of these accepted views by arguing that, while not apolitical, Howells was not as nave or as reactionary as some have claimed. By not accounting for the direction Howells takes in his later work, particularly as it imagines and represents memory, previous studiesso reliant on postmodern-influenced criticism seem to have often overlooked Howellss own postmodern leanings. Tropes of memory and amnesia have become prominent in postmodern theories of history and subjectivity, registering anxiety about the stability of the self and serving as metaphors for the impossibility of objective and secure historical narratives. Howellss work, this book maintains, consistently gestures toward these and other characteristics of the postmodern in its approach to history and questions the versions ofliterary realism that have become sacrosanct within the academy. Ultimately, this book provides other teachers, researchers, and students with a new framework with which to approach Howells and American realism. As his discussion draws on a variety of discourse in its exploration of Americas politics of memory, a secondary, more interdisciplinary audience includes those interested in political and social theory, history, and cultural studies. This is an important book for scholars, students, and te

It's an all-new thrilling adventure about growing up and facing your fears in Monsters Take Manhattan, the second novel in the Monster Club series from the creative minds of Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel, and Lance Rubin. Ever since Eric "Doodles" King and his friends saved Coney Island from Crumple Monster and its minions, Eric's life has been changing faster than he ever expected. His parents' divorce has gone through, his mom has moved to a deluxe apartment in Manhattan, and now she's making him start all over at a fancy new private school. Suddenly, Eric's trapped between two worlds - his old Coney Island friends and the rich, cool kids at his new school who treat him like a celebrity. At least, Eric thinks, his days of epic monster battles are behind him. But what he doesn't realize is that the magic mermaid ink that brought his drawings to life hasn't been destroyed like he thought. Quite the opposite, King Neptune has found a way to take the last remaining drops to create a new class of creatures perfectly designed to put New York City right back where it belongs - underwater. Now it's up to Eric to rally Monster Club again and find a way to bring back Brickman, Bellybeast, Skelegurl, DecaSpyder, and RoboKillz so they can stop Neptune before it's too late. Monster Club: Monsters Take Manhattan is the second epic, heart-pounding adventure from award-winning screenwriter, director, and author Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel, and Lance Rubin.

The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television: Twenty-First-Century Bust Culture sheds light on how imaginary works of fiction, film, and television reflect, refract, and respond to the recessionary times specific to the twenty-first century, a sustained period of economic crisis that has earned the title the "Great Recession." This collection takes as its focus "Bust Culture," a concept that refers to post-crash popular culture, specifically the kind mass produced by multinational corporations in the age of media conglomeration, which is inflected by diminishment, influenced by scarcity, and infused with anxiety. The multidisciplinary contributors collected here examine mass culture not typically included in discussions of the financial meltdown, from disaster films to reality TV hoarders, the horror genre to reactionary representations of women, Christian right radio to Batman, television characters of color to graphic novels and literary fiction. The collected essays treat our busted culture as a seismograph that registers the traumas of collapse, and locate their pop artifacts along a spectrum of ideological fantasies, social erasures, and profound fears inspired by the Great Recession. What they discover from these unlikely indicators of the recession is a mix of regressive, progressive, and bemused texts in need of critical translation.

The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television: Twenty-First-Century Bust Culture sheds light on how imaginary works of fiction, film, and television reflect, refract, and respond to the recessionary times specific to the twenty-first century, a sustained period of economic crisis that has earned the title the "Great Recession." This collection takes as its focus "Bust Culture," a concept that refers to post-crash popular culture, specifically the kind mass produced by multinational corporations in the age of media conglomeration, which is inflected by diminishment, influenced by scarcity, and infused with anxiety. The multidisciplinary contributors collected here examine mass culture not typically included in discussions of the financial meltdown, from disaster films to reality TV hoarders, the horror genre to reactionary representations of women, Christian right radio to Batman, television characters of color to graphic novels and literary fiction. The collected essays treat our busted culture as a seismograph that registers the traumas of collapse, and locate their pop artifacts along a spectrum of ideological fantasies, social erasures, and profound fears inspired by the Great Recession. What they discover from these unlikely indicators of the recession is a mix of regressive, progressive, and bemused texts in need of critical translation.

Reading Chuck Palahniuk examines how the author pushes through a variety of boundaries to shape fiction and to question American identity in powerful and important ways. Palahniuk's innovative stylistic accomplishments and notoriously disturbing subject matters invite close analysis, and the new essays in this collection offer fascinating insights about Palahniuk's texts, contexts, contributions, and controversies. Addressing novels from Fight Club through Snuff, as well as his nonfiction, this volume will be valuable to anyone with a serious interest in contemporary literature.

Reading Chuck Palahniuk examines how the author pushes through a variety of boundaries to shape fiction and to question American identity in powerful and important ways. Palahniuk's innovative stylistic accomplishments and notoriously disturbing subject matters invite close analysis, and the new essays in this collection offer fascinating insights about Palahniuk's texts, contexts, contributions, and controversies. Addressing novels from Fight Club through Snuff, as well as his nonfiction, this volume will be valuable to anyone with a serious interest in contemporary literature.

The first of two books, Denton Little's Deathdate is an utterly gripping read - with a killer plot twist, hilarious characters, and a truly memorable voice. Imminent death has never been so funny! Denton Little's Deathdate takes place in a world exactly like our own - except that everyone knows the day on which they will die. For Denton, that's in just two days - the day of his senior prom. Despite his early deathdate, Denton has always wanted to live a normal life - but his final days are filled with dramatic firsts. First hangover. First sex. First love triangle (the first sex seems to have happened not with his adoring girlfriend, but with his best friend's sister. Though he's not totallysure - see, first hangover). His anxiety builds when he discovers a mysterious purple rash making its way up his body. Is this what will kill him? Then a strange man shows up at his funeral, claiming to have known Denton's long-deceased mother, and giving him a confusing warning... Suddenly Denton's life is filled with mysterious questions and precious little time to find the answers. Lance Rubin takes us on a fast, gripping, and outrageously funny ride through the last hours of a teenager's life as he searches for love, meaning and (just maybe) a way to live on . . .