The American Biographical Novel (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781628926330)

Before the 1970s, there were only a few acclaimed biographical novels. But starting in the 1980s, there was a veritable explosion of this genre of fiction, leading to the publication of spectacular biographical novels about figures as varied as Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, and Marilyn Monroe, just to mention a notable few. This publication frenzy culminated in 1999 when two biographical novels (Michael Cunningham's The Hours and Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Cunningham's novel won the award. In The American Biographical Novel, Michael Lackey charts the shifts in intellectual history that made the biographical novel acceptable to the literary establishment and popular with the general reading public. More specifically, Lackey clarifies the origin and evolution of this genre of fiction, specifies the kind of 'truth' it communicates, provides a framework for identifying how this genre uniquely engages the political, and demonstrates how it gives readers new access to history.

Author: Michael Lackey
ISBN-10: 1628926333
ISBN-13: 9781628926330
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Language: English
Published: 04/07/2016
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2016