Genre bending : the plasticity of form in contemporary literary fiction / Jeremy Rosen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rosen, Jeremy, 1978- author.

Series:

Post 45.

Post 45

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fiction genres--History--21st century.

Fiction genres.

Fiction--21st century--History and criticism.

Fiction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (348 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2026]

Summary:

"Detective, horror, fantasy, romance, science fiction, spy thrillers, westerns, zombie novels. In recent decades, acclaimed and ambitious writers of literary fiction have increasingly gravitated to popular fiction genres. In this comprehensive account, Jeremy Rosen describes literary fiction's embrace of genre fiction's conceits as "genre bending" and argues that while literary writers adopt genres for a wide variety of purposes, what they share is a revitalized attitude toward genre—a recognition that while genres can be used in formulaic ways, they can also be adapted and transformed endlessly. Rosen reads across the outpouring of fiction of the last several decades by writers like Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Jennifer Egan, Louise Erdrich, Kazuo Ishiguro, Chang-rae Lee, David Mitchell, Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwan, Haruki Murakami, and Colson Whitehead. He finds that literary writers' embrace of popular genres is the product of several seemingly contradictory forces, including their attempt to extend a modernist-inspired project of formal experiment, to pursue high cultural prestige, and to preserve the distinctiveness of the literary, which they perceive to be under threat, while also embracing the role of providing pleasure to readers. Examining what today's most critically acclaimed and widely read literary writers have done with the genres of genre fiction, Genre Bending reveals the values, practices, and forms, as well as the tensions, that constitute literary fiction today."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Front Cover

Half-title

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Preface: Beyoncé and Werewolves

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Literary Fiction and the Genres of Genre Fiction

1. Theorizing the Plastic Utility of Genre

2. Prose Style and Interiority in Genre-Bending Literary Fiction

3. Genre-Bending Literary Fiction's Self-Reflexivity

4. The Pleasures of Immersion in a Fictional World

5. The Novel of the Global Generic

6. Scalar Modulation and Formal Variation in Literary Climate Fiction

Coda: Literary Romance and Social Media Speculation

Notes

Index

Series Page

Back Cover.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Rosen, Jeremy, 1978- Genre bending

ISBN:

9781503644632

1503644634

OCLC:

1543211356