Dissenting Fictions: Identity and Resistance in the Contemporary American Novel

This study elucidates the relationship between identity formation and resistance to racial and sexual oppression in a group of contemporary American novels the author terms dissenting fictions . Through interpretative readings of the works of well-known authors Toni Morrison and Leslie Marmon Silko, critically acclaimed novelist David Bradley, the well-respected but little-studied novelist Russell Banks, and the relatively unknown Leslie Feinberg, the author explores a range of practices that illuminates these notions of identity.