Rewriting Early America

Postmodernist literature has typically been viewed as lacking the ability to engage productively with the past. Theorists, Fredric Jameson among them, have seen postmodernist literature as nostalgic and marked by pastiche. Now Coffman argues for a revised understanding of the postmodernist project, an understanding of it as presenting a 'more reparative' historical interaction that accounts for previous blind spots with regard to American literary historiography. Coffman shows how selected authors—John Berryman, John Barth, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Pynchon, William T. Vollmann, Susan Howe, Toni Morrison—look back to early American history to address contemporary concerns. Throughout, Coffman makes his case with erudition and sensitivity to ongoing debates in the field about inclusivity in the cultural life of the US. One of the nice surprises for this reviewer was finding an Irish writer studied alongside American contemporaries, an inclusion that provides a unique perspective. . . . [A] welcome addition to the literature. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * CHOICE *
This is a brilliant book, whose scope ranges beyond literary criticism, even as it excels at it. Coffman combines luminous close-reading with well-digested, comprehensive theoretical background to analyze the way very different writers address the colonial past and pre-conquest history, questioning the often unacknowledged preconceptions that still underlie our contemporary views. . . . This critical reprise of how writers revise their mythologized, national, transnational or adopted past makes for a refreshing read. It is no small prowess to have written a page-turner of such intellectual scope. -- Françoise Palleau-Papin, Professor of American Literature at the University of Paris XIII

Across the six chapters of this insightful – and surprisingly provocative – monograph, Christopher K. Coffman builds a case for seeing our contemporary moment as being uniquely suited to the composition of works engaged with the colonial era. Alongside the critical theory, there is some wonderful writing to be found in this book.

* American Book Review *