Tragedy, Affect and Labor in American Literature, 1945-2020

This book is a politically urgent and critically rigorous study of the reemergence of tragedy in American literature since 1945. It argues that literature appeals to tragic forms and figures to narrate the lived experience of labor during a period of social upheaval. In the novels of William Gaddis, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Pynchon, Kathy Acker, Philip Roth and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the generic coordinates of tragedy attach to the precarious work lives of multiple characters in ways that br...