Title: City of words: American fiction, 1950-1970.
Authors: Tanner, Tony.
Publisher: Cape,
Year: 1971
Subjects: American fiction History and criticism
Abstract: Malamud, Bernard; Mailer, Norman; Kesey, Ken; Bellows, Saul; Roth, Philip; Conroy, Frank; Percy, Walker; Plath, Sylvia; Sontag, Susan; Gass, William.
Contents: On lexical playfields (Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges) -- The music of invisibility (Ralph Ellison) -- A mode of motion (Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller) -- Frames without pictures (James Purdy) -- Rub out the word (William Burroughs) -- Everything running down -- Caries and cabals (Thomas Pynchon) -- The uncertain messenger (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.) -- Necessary landscapes and luminous deteriorations (John Hawkes) -- What is the case? (John Barth) -- Interior spaciousness -car, bell jar, tunnel and house (Walker Percy, Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, William Gass) -- A compromised environment (John Updike) -- Fictionalized recall -or "The settling of scores! The pursuit of dreams!" (Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Frank Conroy) -- A new life (Bernard Malamud) -- On the parapet (Norman Mailer) -- Edge city (Ken Kesey) -- Conclusion: Recognitions (William Gaddis) -- Fragments and fantasies (Donald Barthelme, Richard Brautigan) -- The wide wings of the language.