Abstract

Mid-Cult Fiction

The article focuses on the book "Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. By Cathy N. Davidson. Like any good book, this one raises almost as many important questions as it answers. Most unsettling is the author's contention that the novel is a genre that challenged bastions of cultural privilege, the restriction of literacy and hierarchical social authority. While certainly true, this seems only part of the story. Recent historical research indicates that the first half-century of American nationhood saw not just a crisis of authority but also the consolidation of liberal capitalism. That development created a market society and economy, a pluralist politics of organized interest groups and a bourgeois culture of self-made success.