Christopher K. Coffman is senior lecturer in humanities at Boston University.

Postmodernist literature has typically been viewed as lacking the ability to engage productively with the past. Theorists, Fredric Jameson among them, have seen postmodernist literature as nostalgic and marked by pastiche. Now Coffman argues for a revised understanding of the postmodernist project, an understanding of it as presenting a 'more reparative' historical interaction that accounts for previous blind spots with regard to American literary historiography. Coffman shows how selected authors—John Berryman, John Barth, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Pynchon, William T. Vollmann, Susan Howe, Toni Morrison—look back to early American history to address contemporary concerns. Throughout, Coffman makes his case with erudition and sensitivity to ongoing debates in the field about inclusivity in the cultural life of the US. One of the nice surprises for this reviewer was finding an Irish writer studied alongside American contemporaries, an inclusion that provides a unique perspective. . . . [A] welcome addition to the literature. Summing Up: Highly recommended.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Contemporary American Literature and Early AmericaChapter 1: Berryman’s Bradstreet and the End(s) of New CriticismChapter 2: John Barth’s Metanarrative Critique, or, History as Literature as ReenactmentChapter 3: Tradition and Critique in Paul Muldoon’s “Madoc: A Mystery”Chapter 4: Material Values in Pynchon and VollmannChapter 5: The New World(s) of Thomas PynchonChapter 6: Silence and Places beyond Power in the Poetry of Susan HoweConclusion: The Problem of American Origins, Freedom from Power, and Toni Morrison’s A MercyBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

Christopher K. Coffman is senior lecturer in humanities at Boston University.

Postmodernist literature has typically been viewed as lacking the ability to engage productively with the past. Theorists, Fredric Jameson among them, have seen postmodernist literature as nostalgic and marked by pastiche. Now Coffman argues for a revised understanding of the postmodernist project, an understanding of it as presenting a 'more reparative' historical interaction that accounts for previous blind spots with regard to American literary historiography. Coffman shows how selected authors—John Berryman, John Barth, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Pynchon, William T. Vollmann, Susan Howe, Toni Morrison—look back to early American history to address contemporary concerns. Throughout, Coffman makes his case with erudition and sensitivity to ongoing debates in the field about inclusivity in the cultural life of the US. One of the nice surprises for this reviewer was finding an Irish writer studied alongside American contemporaries, an inclusion that provides a unique perspective. . . . [A] welcome addition to the literature. Summing Up: Highly recommended.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Contemporary American Literature and Early AmericaChapter 1: Berryman’s Bradstreet and the End(s) of New CriticismChapter 2: John Barth’s Metanarrative Critique, or, History as Literature as ReenactmentChapter 3: Tradition and Critique in Paul Muldoon’s “Madoc: A Mystery”Chapter 4: Material Values in Pynchon and VollmannChapter 5: The New World(s) of Thomas PynchonChapter 6: Silence and Places beyond Power in the Poetry of Susan HoweConclusion: The Problem of American Origins, Freedom from Power, and Toni Morrison’s A MercyBibliographyIndexAbout the Author