This book examines representations of the specter in American twentieth and twenty-first-century fiction. David Coughlan's innovative structure has chapters on Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, and Philip Roth alternating with shorter sections detailing the significance of the ghost in the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, particularly within the context of his 1993 text, Specters of Marx. Together, these accounts of phantoms, shadows, haunts, spirit, the death sentence, and hospitality provide a compelling theoretical context in which to read contemporary US literature. Ghost Writing in Contemporary American Fiction argues at every stage that there is no self, no relation to the other, no love, no home, no mourning, no future, no trace of life without the return of the specter-that is, without ghost writing.

Inhalt

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One. Introduction: Of Spectrality

Ghost Writing

Chapter Two. Mimes and Phantoms: Don DeLillo

Shadows

Chapter Three. One Pace After the Other: Paul Auster

Haunts

Chapter Four. Exit Ghost Writer: Philip Roth

Of "Spirit"

Chapter Five. Passing Through: Marilynne Robinson

Death Sentence

Chapter Six. Gone sometime. Home to stay: Marilynne Robinson

Ghostpitality

Chapter Seven. Haunted Homes: Toni Morrison

Notes

Works Cited Index