The psychopath and the twentieth-century American novel / Frederick Whiting

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whiting, Frederick, author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in American literature and culture

Cambridge studies in American literature and culture ; 203.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Psychopaths in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2026

Summary:

"The Psychopath and the Twentieth-Century American Novel examines the psychopath as a new kind of monster. Frederick Whiting reads novels– ranging from pulp fiction to belles lettres– that draw on science, law, and popular journalism to try to explain this threatening new creature. Through these readings, this book uncovers the ways in which the figure of the psychopath that appeared in so many twentieth-century American novels expressed cultural anxieties about sexuality, race, gender, and class– even as the psychopath marked the shifting boundaries of the category of “the human.” Whiting offers an interdisciplinary analysis showing how literature, science, law, and popular journalism inform each other. Ultimately, he concludes, this episode in the genealogy of monstrosity amounts to a transformation in the evolving concept of the monstrous itself– from a violation of our nature to a violation of our narratives"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Introduction : The inner limits : of psychopathology and teratology

From whodunit to whatisit : detective fiction and the psychopath’s novel emergence

Problematic youth : psychopathy and the Black bildungsroman

Confessional conformity : Lolita, the law, and the limits of formalism

Redeeming the psychopath : autobiography as a novel, the novel as autobiography

Mimesis and desire in In Cold Blood

Coda : The shape of things to come

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed August 26, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version: Whiting, Frederick Psychopath and the twentieth-century American novel

ISBN:

9781009769853

1009769855

9781009769839

1009769839

OCLC:

1581006944

Publisher Number:

CIPO000421295

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license