Sara Paretsky: Detective Fiction as Trauma Literature

di Cynthia Hamilton (Autore)

Manchester University Press, 2021

Sara Paretsky is known for her influential V.I. Warshawski series, which transformed the masculine hard-boiled detective formula into a vehicle for feminist values. But Paretsky does more than this. Her novels also illustrate the extent to which detective fiction acts as a literature of trauma, allowing Paretsky to address the politics of agency in ways that go beyond the personal, for trauma always has a social and a political dimension. Paretsky's work also exploits the way detective fiction mirrors the writing of history. Here, Paretsky uses the form to expose the partiality of historical accounts - whether they be personal, institutional, or national - that authorise 'forgetting' of a particularly insidious kind. Significantly, all these issues are explored within the framework of the traditional hard-boiled detective novel. As a result, Paretsky's achievement forces us to acknowledge the deeply subversive potential of detective fiction. -- .

• Autore: Cynthia Hamilton
• Editore: Manchester University Press
• Collana: Contemporary American and Canadian Writers
• Anno: 2021
• Rilegatura: Paperback / softback
• Pagine: 200 p.
• Dimensioni: 216 x 138 mm
• EAN: 9781526156044

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