Chris Kraus's 'Summer of Hate' is a novel that explores the complexities of love, art, and politics in the context of the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of right-wing extremism in the United States. The story follows a real estate speculator and art critic who becomes entangled in the world of Arizona real estate and the militarized border regime. Kraus's writing is characterized by its sharp wit, unflinching honesty, and exploration of social and political issues. The novel's exploration of class, power, and the human condition remains relevant, prompting reflection on the complexities of social justice and the search for meaning. Its powerful imagery and evocative prose continue to captivate readers.
William Faulkner's 'Intruder in the Dust' is a Southern Gothic novel that explores themes of race, justice, and social inequality in the American South. The story follows a young white boy who becomes involved in a murder investigation, challenging the prevailing racial prejudices of his community. Faulkner masterfully weaves together multiple perspectives and narrative voices, creating a complex and nuanced portrayal of the South's racial dynamics. The novel's exploration of justice and the search for truth remains relevant, prompting reflection on the enduring legacy of racism and the pursuit of equality. Its powerful imagery and evocative prose continue to captivate readers.
Myka Tucker-Abramson's 'Cartographies of Empire' offers a comprehensive analysis of the road novel genre, challenging conventional notions of its focus on American experiences. The book examines over 140 road novels from various countries, revealing the genre's connection to US hegemony's global trajectory. Tucker-Abramson uses materialist theories of genre and world-ecology to explore how the road novel both exposes and obscures the realities of capitalist modernization. The analysis shifts focus from the car and individual narratives to the broader geopolitical context and the impact on those left behind. The book ultimately remaps the road novel, highlighting its capacity for both revealing and concealing harsh truths.
In *Severance*, Ling Ma tells the story of Candace Chen, a millennial who works as a Senior Product Coordinator for the Bibles Division at a Manhattan-based publishing company. The narrative shifts between Candace's life before and after the Shen Fever pandemic, which slowly obliterates global civilization. The book delves into themes of nostalgia, the monotony of modern office culture, and the complexities of intimate relationships. As Candace joins a group of survivors led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob, she must confront her own secrets and the challenges of starting anew in a post-apocalyptic world. The novel is a satire that critiques contemporary life, consumerism, and the global economic system, while also being a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive human survival and meaning.
Our Share of Night is a complex horror epic that follows Juan and his son Gaspar as they navigate the sinister world of the Order, a cult obsessed with immortality. The novel explores themes of intergenerational trauma, love, and the supernatural against the backdrop of Argentina's tumultuous history. It delves into the darker aspects of human nature and the consequences of violence and cruelty.
Published in 1952, Wise Blood is Flannery O'Connor's first novel and a masterpiece of allegory and farce. The story revolves around Hazel Motes, a twenty-two-year-old veteran who returns to find his family home in ruins. He founds the Church Without Christ, advocating a humanistic reliance on self rather than God. Motes's journey is marked by encounters with various characters, including the 'blind' street preacher Asa Hawks, his daughter Sabbath Lily, and Enoch Emery, a young man with 'wise blood.' The novel explores themes of spiritual truth, false prophets, and the search for redemption in a world characterized by sin, guilt, and judgment[2][3][5].
In 'I Love Dick', Chris Kraus merges fiction and memoir formats to narrate her infatuation with 'Dick', a media theorist and sociologist. The novel is written as a series of love letters that the author and her husband, Sylvère Lotringer, compose and sometimes co-write, even though they are not sent. This work delves into themes of marriage, art, and the transformative power of first-person narrative, and it has been hailed as a 'cult feminist classic' and a key intervention in feminist literature. The book is characterized by its blend of autobiography, experimentation, graphic sex, and intellectualism, marking a significant contribution to the autotheory genre.
Written in a style of spontaneous prose, 'On the Road' is a semi-autobiographical novel that follows the travels of Sal Paradise and his friend Dean Moriarty across America. The book captures the spirit of the post-war Beat Generation, embracing a lifestyle of freedom, jazz, and rebellion against societal norms. It has become a defining work of American counterculture.
The road novel is often dismissed as a mundane, nostalgic genre: Jack, Sal, and other tedious white men on the road trying to recapture an authentic youth and American past that never existed. Yet, new road novels appear every year, tackling unexpected questions and spanning new geographies, from Mexico, Brazil, Bulgaria, Palestine, Ukraine, and former-Yugoslavia. Why did the road novel emerge and why does it persist? What does it do and why has it traveled so widely?
In Cartographies of Empire: The Road Novel and American Hegemony (Stanford University Press, 2025) Dr. Myka Tucker-Abramson draws from an archive of more than 140 global road novels from over twenty countries, challenging dominant conceptions of the road novel as primarily concerned with American experiences and subjectivities. Grounding her analysis in materialist theories of genre, world-ecology and commodity frontier frameworks, and post-45 American literary studies, Dr. Tucker-Abramson persuasively argues that the road novel is a genre specific to, coterminous with, and revealing of US hegemony's global trajectory. Shifting our focus from Americanness to the fraught geopolitics of US Empire, from the car to the built environment through which it moves, and from passengers to those left behind, Dr. Tucker-Abramson remaps the road novel, elucidating the genre's unique ability both to reveal the violent and vertiginous processes of capitalist modernization and to obfuscate these harsh truths through seductive narratives of individual success and failure.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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