On Endings

How did the way we think of time change during the Cold War, when mutually assured destruction by nuclear bombardment brought into question like never before, the possibility of the future, and specifically how did writers register this in narrative experimentation? These are the central questions of Grausam's (English, Washington U.) historicist study of temporality in, and the very specific influence of, nuclear weapons on postmodern fiction during the Cold War. In taking time as such a relevant category in postmodern fiction, he departs from Fredric Jameson's influential formulation of the postmodern as "a present unable to think of itself historically," while casting doubt on Einstein's suggestion that "the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking." His subjects include the writing of Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Robert Coover, David Foster Wallace, Donald Barthelme, Don DeLillo and Richard Powers. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Daniel Grausam is Assistant Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis and the coeditor of the forthcomingAmerican Literature and Culture in an Age of Cold War.