Harbingers of a Century: The Novels of Frank Norris

Harbingers of a Century: The Novels of Frank Norris represents a major reassessment of the California writer’s long fiction. Lawrence E. Hussman argues persuasively that Norris should be viewed as a life-long philosophical materialist who developed an existential ethic of love for another and compassion for the other. His novels rehearse many of the themes of Norris’s American fiction-writing successors, including desire and disillusionment in national context. Along the way, Hussman proves to be a knowledgeable guide through the thicket of previous Norris criticism.