The Twilight of the Middle Class: Post-World War II American Fiction and White-Collar Work
"This excellent book offers an original and highly provocative argument about a vital period of American literary and cultural history. Bold and often brilliant, its graceful expository style illuminates an impressively wide range of material without ever becoming scholastic. Most importantly, it proposes new and highly plausible ways of understanding the significance of a number of important literary works."--Sean McCann, Wesleyan University, author ofGumshoe America"The Twilight of the Middle Classis a powerful, well-researched, and unique piece of scholarship that fills a gap in current approaches to Cold War era fiction by situating it within the economic framework that shaped it. Through perceptive and fresh readings of Ayn Rand, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor, and Saul Bellow, its author demonstrates that the era's fiction is preoccupied with the problem of the 'organization man,' who translates concerns about class into concerns about individual autonomy--and by doing so universalizes his economically specific complaint into a shared human condition."--Rachel Adams, Columbia University, author ofSideshow U.S.A--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.