Samuel Becketts Legacies in American Fiction: Problems in Postmodernism [Paperback]

Samuel Becketts Legacies in American Fiction provides an overdue investigation into Becketts rich influences over American writing. Through in-depth readings of postmodern authors such as Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Paul Auster and Lydia Davis, this book situates Becketts post-war writing of exhaustion and generation in relation to the emergence of an explosive American avant-garde. In turn, this study provides a valuable insight into the practical realities of Becketts dissemination in America, following the authors long-standing relationship with the countercultural magazine Evergreen Review and its dramatic role in redrawing the possibilities of American culture in the 1960s. While Beckett would be largely removed from his American context, this book follows his vigorous, albeit sometimes awkward, reception alongside the authors and institutions central to shaping his legacies in 20^th and 21^st centuryAmerica.

Introduction: Beckett in America: somehow not the right country.- Chapter 1: The Evergreen Review: Beckett and the American underground.- Chapter 2: Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme and Metafictional Style After Beckett: Problems and Pratfalls.- Chapter 3: Opposing Tendencies in the Exhaustive Fiction of Samuel Beckett and Thomas Pynchon: Between zero and one.- Chapter 4: Don DeLillos Reinvention of Beckett World.- Chapter 5: Paul Auster, Lydia Davis and Becketts Post-millennial Legacies.- Conclusion: a postmodern icon?

Dr James Baxter was awarded his PhD at the University of Reading in 2018, where he specialized in Becketts legacy on Postmodern American Literature. James has published articles in high-profile journals such as Textual Practice