Introduction
1 Family Values
Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye
Russell Banks Affliction
E. A. Proulx The Shipping News
Jay Mclnerney Bright Lights, Big City
Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees
John Dufresne Louisiana Power & Light
2 Genderand History
Bobble Ann Mason In Country
Jayne Anne Phillips Machine Dreams
lane Smiley A Thousand Acres
Alice Walker The Color Purple
3 The West
Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian
E. A. Proulx Close Range
Sherman Alexie The Lone-Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Tim OBrien Northern Lights
Donald Antrim Elect Mr Robinson for a Better World
4 Consumerism, Media, Technology
E. L. Doctorow Ragtime
Don DeLiUo White Noise
Don DeLillo Mao II
Don DeLillo Underworld
Po Bronson Bombardiers
5 Language and Power
Gish Jen Typical American
Chang-rae Lee Native Speaker
John Edgar Wideman Philadelphia Fire
Paul Auster The New York Trilogy
Barry Hannah High Lonesome
6 Sport
Richard Ford The Sportswriter
William Kennedy Billy Phelans Greatest Game
Leonard Gardner Fat City
Don DeLiUo End Zone
Robert Coover The Universal Baseball Association, inc. J. Henry Waugh, PROP.
7 Imagining Subjectivity
John Updike Memories of the Ford Administration
Philip Roth American Pastoral
E. L. Doctorow Billy Bathgate
Louise Erdrich Tales of Burning Love
Conclusion
Bibliography