Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950-75 explores the intersections of violence, masculinity, and racial and ethnic tension in America as it is depicted in the fiction of Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, and Philip Roth. Maggie McKinley reconsiders the longstanding association between masculinity and violence, locating a problematic paradox within works by these writers: as each author figures violence as central to the establishment of a liberated masculine identity, the use of this violence often reaffirms many constricting and emasculating cultural myths and power structures that the authors and their protagonists are seeking to overturn.

Roth and Celebrity is composed of 10 original essays that consider the vexed and ambivalent relationship between Philip Roth and his own celebrity as revealed both in personal interviews as well as in the fiction that spans his publishing history. With its simultaneous interest in American popular culture and the work of the most important living American writer to-date, the collection will hold wide appeal to advanced readers in American studies, literary scholarship, and film.

Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950-75 explores the intersections of violence, masculinity, and racial and ethnic tension in America as it is depicted in the fiction of Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, and Philip Roth. Maggie McKinley reconsiders the longstanding association between masculinity and violence, locating a problematic paradox within works by these writers: as each author figures violence as central to the establishment of a liberated masculine identity, the use of this violence often reaffirms many constricting and emasculating cultural myths and power structures that the authors and their protagonists are seeking to overturn.

Roth and Celebrity is composed of 10 original essays that consider the vexed and ambivalent relationship between Philip Roth and his own celebrity as revealed both in personal interviews as well as in the fiction that spans his publishing history. With its simultaneous interest in American popular culture and the work of the most important living American writer to-date, the collection will hold wide appeal to advanced readers in American studies, literary scholarship, and film.