New Literary Portraits of the American West

This book addresses contemporary Nevada fiction as one of the most probing literary explorations of the American West. It is argued that recent fictional representations of Nevada both encompass some common thematic trends in contemporary western writing and present unique features, such as its depiction of Basque immigrants, the nuclear controversy, and Las Vegas and Reno.

This book focuses on contemporary Nevada fiction as one of the most probing and intense literary explorations of the American West as a whole. Recent fictional representations of Nevada possess a revelatory value in relation to the whole West because they encompass some of the most common thematic trends in contemporary western writing. Actually, the thematic maturation of Nevada fiction over the last four decades often parallels the evolution of postfrontier writing, in particular, its growing departure from the overused topics and images of the formula western. Nevada fiction also possesses some unique and distinctive themes, such as its depiction of Basque immigrants, its emphasis on nuclear testing and nuclear waste, and its portrait of such peculiar cities as Reno and Las Vegas. This study discusses contemporary writing set in Nevada both by Nevadans (Robert Laxalt, Frank Bergon, Willy Vlautin, Phyllis Barber, Claire Vaye Watkins) and by non-resident authors (Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, Larry McMurtry), drawing new attention to a remarkable literature that has been too often neglected in discussions of the American West.

Autorentext

David Rio is Professor of American Literature at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in Vitoria-Gasteiz, where he also coordinates a research group (REWEST) specialized in the literature of the American West. He is the author of El proceso de la violencia en la narrativa de Robert Penn Warren (1995) and Robert Laxalt: The Voice of the Basques in American Literature (2007), and the co-editor of several volumes on contemporary western American literature.

Zusammenfassung
«I am impressed by David Rio's command of the field of Nevada literature and of Western American literature and theory more broadly. As the first book-length study of Nevada fiction, this book is important and all the more so for situating its topic amidst larger trends in New Western writing. The book will be a valuable milestone in Nevada's literary coming of age.»
(Cheryll Glotfelty, editor of Literary Nevada: Writings from the Silver State)

Inhalt
Contents: The American West Revisited: Place, Myth, and Realism in New Western Fiction The Silver State vs. The Sin State: Nevada and Its Fictional Portraits Contemporary Trends in Nevada Fiction.