In an exploration of how contemporary fiction narratives represent trauma--that response to events so overwhelmingly intense that normal responses become impaired--Laurie Vickroy engages a wealth of the twentieth century's most striking literature. Toni Morrison's Beloved and Jazz, Marguerite Duras's The Lover, Dorothy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina, Jamaica Kincaid's The Autobiography of My Mother, and Larry Heinemann's Paco's Story, among others, are the source of Vickroy's study investigating the complex relationship between sociocultural influences and intimate personal relations...

As part of the contemporary reassessment of trauma that goes beyond Freudian psychoanalysis, Laurie Vickroy theorizes trauma in the context of psychological, literary, and cultural criticism. Focusing on novels by Margaret Atwood, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Jeanette Winterson, and Chuck Palahniuk, she shows how these writers try to enlarge our understanding of the relationship between individual traumas and the social forces of injustice, oppression, and objectification. Further, she argues, their work provides striking examples of how the devastating effects of trauma--whether...

As part of the contemporary reassessment of trauma that goes beyond Freudian psychoanalysis, Laurie Vickroy theorizes trauma in the context of psychological, literary, and cultural criticism. Focusing on novels by Margaret Atwood, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Jeanette Winterson, and Chuck Palahniuk, she shows how these writers try to enlarge our understanding of the relationship between individual traumas and the social forces of injustice, oppression, and objectification. Further, she argues, their work provides striking examples of how the devastating effects of trauma--whether...