'Gibbs drives a cart and horses through the conventional critical orthodoxies of trauma theory, demonstrating the decisive challenge offered by contemporary American writers. Brimming with fresh insights, rigorously argued and covering a wide range of contemporary narratives, the book sets a new agenda for the study of trauma and literature.' Judie Newman, University of Nottingham 'Alan Gibbs's Contemporary American Trauma Narratives delivers a powerful critique of key trauma-theoretical tenets - belatedness, literality, punctuality, non-narratability, and victim-centredness - and makes an eloquent case for trauma scholarship in the humanities to become more flexible, responsive, and pluralistic. Bold, lucid, and meticulously argued, it is a major intervention in the field and deserves a wide readership.' Stef Craps, Ghent University Examines the representation of trauma in contemporary American fiction and non-fiction This book looks at the way writers present the effects of trauma in their work. It explores narrative devices, such as metafiction, as well as events in contemporary America, including 9/11, the Iraq War and reactions to the Bush administration. Contemporary American authors who are discussed in depth include Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison, Tim O'Brien, Lorrie Moore, Mark Danielewski, Art Spiegelman, Jonathan Safran Foer, Anthony Swofford, Evan Wright, Paul Auster, Philip Roth and Michael Chabon. Contemporary American Trauma Narratives offers a timely and dissenting intervention into debates about American writers' depiction of trauma and its consequences. Alan Gibbs is a lecturer in American Literature in the School of English, University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of Henry Roth's Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Second Career of an American Novelist (2008). He has previously published on Jewish-American literature, crime fiction and on trauma in criticism, contemporary American literature and popular culture. Cover image: Katharine Dowson, Radiotherapy Patient 10, glass, 2011. Image courtesy of the artist and GV Art gallery, London. Cover design: hayesdesign.co.uk [EUP logo] euppublishing.com

Introduction; Part 1. Traumatic Forms; 1. 'Classical' American Trauma Narratives; 2. Traumatic Metafiction and the Inscribed Narrator; Part 2: Traumatic Themes; 3. 9/11 and the Postmodernists' Response; 4. The Iraq Wars: Testimony, Perpetrators and Adaptation; 5. The Bush Administration and Counterfactual Histories; Conclusion.