The Novel Today (Summer)

Discuss major new work by today’s top writers, including emerging novelists, award-winners, and established favorites, all of whom are central to today's cultural conversation. We will investigate a variety of inventive narrative strategies, explore the psychology of numerous fascinating characters, and examine important topics within a context of changing times, changing lives and a changing world. Together we will explore: an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador who negotiates the deeps and the shallows of Queens and Harvard; deep ethical questions about fault and responsibility and the fragility of upper-middle-class life in Chesapeake Bay: an artist struggling in the shadow of Hollywood’s Dream Factory; first loves, lost innocence, and the deep bond between father and son on the California coast; the search for a spiritual leader that narrows to a baker, a microbrew master, and a witch who is also an environmental warrior; an English love story in the 21st century, and another a hundred years later, each with an unexpected twist ending.
Readings: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina; Andrew Porter, The Imagined Life: Danzy Senna, Colored Television; Bruce Holsinger, Culpability. Michelle Huneven, Search; Ian McEwan, What We Can Know. Students should read Catalina, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio for the first class.