American Literature
3 total works
John Barth, a moderately successful novelist just turned sixty, decides to take a sail on Chesapeake Bay with his wife, but a tropical storm forces them deep into the Maryland tidal marshes. Lost, Barth takes out his dinghy to search for a way home, but becomes embarked instead on a quest through the murkier regions of his own memory--a semi-memoir, staged as an operatic cruise through desire, vocation, despair, love, marriage, selves, and counterselves.
When John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse appeared in 1968, American fiction was turned on its head. Barth's writing was not a response to the realistic fiction that characterized American literature at the time; it beckoned back to the founders of the novel: Cervantes, Rabelais, and Sterne, echoing their playfulness and reflecting the freedom inherent in the writing of fiction.
This collection of Barth's short fiction is a landmark event, bringing all of his previous collections together in one volume for the first time. Its occasion helps readers assess a remarkable lifetime's work and represents an important chapter in the history of American literature. Dalkey Archive will reissue a number of Barth's novels over the next few years, preserving his work for generations to come.
This collection of Barth's short fiction is a landmark event, bringing all of his previous collections together in one volume for the first time. Its occasion helps readers assess a remarkable lifetime's work and represents an important chapter in the history of American literature. Dalkey Archive will reissue a number of Barth's novels over the next few years, preserving his work for generations to come.
