This astute guide to the literary achievements of American novelists in the twentieth century places their work in its historical context and offers detailed analyses of landmark novels based on a clearly laid out set of tools for analyzing narrative form. Includes a valuable overview of twentieth- and early twenty-first century American literary historyProvides analyses of numerous core texts including The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, The Sound and the Fury, The Crying of Lot 49 and FreedomRelates these individual novels to the broader artistic movements of modernism and postmodernismExplains and applies key principles of rhetorical readingIncludes numerous cross-novel comparisons and contrasts