BEYOND SUSPICION [Hardcover]

Selected byChoicemagazine as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1996

In his bookBeyond Suspicion: New American Fiction since 1960, Marc Chénetier analyzes the developments in recent American fiction, arguing that traditional generic approaches can be misleading.

Covers everything from Salinger, Nabokov, Kerouac, and Burroughs to the first hints of cyberpunkishness and textual appropriation that have come to characterize the 1990s. . . . The true brilliance ofBeyond Suspicion. . . is Chenetier's ability to keep all of this era's critics seated at the table in genuine dialogue. . . . His insights are rarely exclusionary, yet his consensus-building never rests on compromise. —American Book Review

Marc Chenetier is Professor of American Literature at the University of Paris VII-Denis Diderot/Institut Universitaire de France. He has served as a visiting professor at Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, Princeton University, University of East Anglia, and elsewhere.

From Abish (Walter) to Zukovsky (Louis), Chenetier has read everything, and one can only admire the sovereign ease with which he has assimilated the enormous corpus and brings it into perspective for the reader. . . . Learned, lucid, and often witty, packed with sharp insights and provocative comments, continuously enlightening, [Beyond Suspicion] . . . should be read by everyone interested in the turbulent fictions of today. —Modern Fiction Studies, in a review of the French edition.

Witty, intelligent, and provocative. . . .Beyond Suspicionis certainly one of the best works on contemporary American fiction. . . . It is unique in the sheer breadth and comprehensiveness of its coverage, the wide-ranging inclusiveness of its appreciations, and the generosity of its enthusiasms. Chenetier's book is indispensable reading for anyone at all interested in American fiction of the past thirty years. &mdlã«