The Family Novel in North America from Post-War to Post-Millennium - A Study in Genre

This study illustrates the generic development of the family novel in thesecond half of the twentieth century. It is a microscopic approach to novelsfeaturing the American family and its (post-)postmodern variations. Dell'swork examines how the family its forms and its conflicts are functionalizedfor an author's cultural critique. From post-war to post-millennium familynovelists have sketched the American family in various precarious conditionsand their texts are critical assessments of contemporary socioeconomic andcultural conditions. Dell's close reading of John Cheever's The WapshotChronicle Don DeLillo's White Noise and Jonathan Franzen's The Correctionsshows that authors react to social and cultural change with new functionalizationsof the family in fiction. Unlike the general assumption of literarycriticism family novels do not approach new cultural developments in aconventional or even traditionalist manner. The significant changes anddevelopments of the family novel in the past five decades demonstrate theneed for the thorough reassessment of the genre Dell offered in this book.