Love and Death in the American Novel - Softcover

Prof. Fiedler's entertaining account of the American novel's obsessions remains one of the key works of American studies more then 30 years after its first appearance.

It is not possible to read Leslie Fiedler's criticism without a sense of awe and excitement.

Genuinely original . . . a work of lasting importance . . . a powerful indictment of our culture and of modern culture in general. --Richard Chase

I know few works of criticism that are so likely to involve the reader whose interest in literature is not of a professional kind . . . it amounts to a general cultural history of the nation. --Lionel Trilling

In its insights the book remains immensely intelligent, immediate, and vital. --David Plante

A retrospective article on Leslie Fiedler in the New York Times Book Review in 1965 referred to Love and Death in the American Novel as "one of the great, essential books on the American imagination . . . an accepted major work." This groundbreaking work views in depth both American literature and character from the time of the American Revolution to the present. From it, there emerges Fiedler's once scandalous—now increasingly accepted—judgment that our literature is incapable of dealing with adult sexuality and is pathologically obsessed with death.