Dwelling in the Text: Houses in American Fiction

What is a house? And what can architecture tell us about individual psychology, national character and aspiration? The house holds a central place in American mythology, as Marilyn Chandler demonstrates in a series of "house tours" through American novels, beginning with Thoreau's Walden and ending with Toni Morrison's Beloved and Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping.

Chandler illuminates the complex analogies between house and psyche, house and family, house and social environment, and house ...