Ulysses Delusion

Cecilia Konchar Farr is Professor of English at St. Catherine University, USA.

“The author provides her readers with a new set of guidelines for judging literary works, specifically novels. … The ‘Ulysses’ Delusion is an ideal model of clear, thoughtful, balanced, witty, and well-written criticism—something I find in extremely short supply these days. … Konchar Farr’s own writing suc­ceeds admirably. This book really is a page-turner.” (Mallory Young, TSWL Tulsa Studies in Women's Literatur, Vol. 38 (2), 2019)"The Ulysses Delusion is an engaging discussion of the contemporary literary marketplace and the tastemakers who have framed discussions of literary quality and served as the gatekeepers to popular success in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. Konchar Farr's unapologetic championing of the accessible is both ideologically resonant with her thesis and admirable—she has truly produced a popular literary criticism that is both rigorous and readable." - Amy L. Blair, Associate Professor of English at Marquette University, USA and author of Reading Up: Middle-Class Readers and the Culture of Success in the Early Twentieth-Century United States

• Preface: Ransoming a Reading NationPART I: THE CRIME1. Come and Get it 2. Bring Money PART II: INVESTIGATIONS3. Reading Lolita at St. Kate's4. Oprah's Book Club and the Summer of Faulkner5. Lost in a Chick Lit Austenland6. What I learned from The (Book) Group7. Storytelling with Jodi Picoult8. Re-Reading Rand 9. Writing WizardryPART III: THE DEAL 10. Redefining Excellence