This book sets out to write nothing short of a new theory of the heroic for today’s world.
It delves into the “why” of the hero as a natural companion piece to the “how” of the hero as written by Northrop Frye and Joseph Campbell over half a century ago.
It challenges our notions of what is heroic about nymphomaniacs, Holocaust survivors, spurious academics, cult followers, terrorists, celebrities, photographers and writers of novels who all attempt to claim the right to be “hero.”
“[W]hen it comes to heroes, contemporary American culture suffers from an embarrassment of riches…the word “hero” has been so widely (mis)appropriated as to have become devaluated…pause to consider, indeed relish, the breadth and reach of the implications of Halldorson’s probing study, a striking reminder that contemporary American literature, seriously conceived and passionately committed to its cultural moment, can still, even in these dreary post-post-whatever-we’re-in era, rise to the occasion … reclaiming the grandeur of the kind of heroes who, unlike the faux-heroes that pop up seasonally at the Cineplex or daily on CNN … prick us, intrigue and perplex us.”
Joseph Dewey, English Studies in Canada
“Heroes—who needs them? Or, better put, who will stand up for them while keeping a straight face? … the bad-guy-as-hero, once revolutionary, practically become a cliché in itself. But what about literature? … Halldorson has chosen a topic refreshing in today’s literary criticism—that both Bellow and DeLillo would recognize as their own.“
Jeffrey Severs, Studies in the Novel
“Halldorson offers perhaps the strongest and most provocative reading of DeLillo’s Mao II that I’ve encountered.”
Curtis Yehnert, Western Oregon University
“[She] is not afraid to tackle big topics (and they don’t come much bigger than this). This intellectually daring study combines astute historical contextualizing and canny theoretical re-conceptualizing with brilliant close readings of texts by two major American novelists.”
University Professor Emeritus Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto
A masterful reader of community and identity … [and] richly attuned to their complex narrative investments.
Thomas Carmichael, University of Western Ontario