ISSN 2044-8031 Issue 20 2011 Night time View Of North America by NASA Earth Observatory 2009 Mapping America - An American trilogy reviewed on page 43 In this year’s issue Why all the Why Teach 3 marsupials? American is the official journal of the 23 American Studies Resources An Interview with Studies in a Centre, The Aldham Robarts MacArthur CIS Country? Centre, Liverpool John Moores Fellowship By Carol Orme- University, Liverpool L1 9DE winning author Jonathan Lethem Johnson Tel: +44 (0)151-231 3241 Conducted by Carol is currently a Peace Corps e-mail: [email protected] James Peacock Volunteer assigned to Azerbaijan web site: State Agricultural University, www.americansc.org.uk Autobiographi- where she taught an American Editor-in-Chief: Dr Bella Adams Studies class last fall. 10 cal Fictions Editor: David Forster Rappin‘ on Editorial assistants: Ethnicity and 26 Tom Donnelly, Jodie Ellis and Racial Identity in Harriet Stuchbury Dualism Jack Layout and graphics: David Kerouac‘s Ashleigh P. Nugent. Forster Satori in Employs the concept The views expressed are those Paris of ‗Racial Dualism‘ as of the contributors, and not nec- a lens through which By Eftychia essarily those of the centre or to explore the racial Mikelli the university. significance of American rap music © 2011, Liverpool John Moores Teaching from the 1990s University and the Contributors. Motherhood, onwards. Articles in this journal may be 16 freely reproduced for use in sub- Madness and Letter from scribing institutions only, pro- Murder 33 New York vided that the source is acknowl- by Lenny Quart edged. The Challenges of Choosing The journal is published with the Modern Book reviews aid of financial assistance from American An American the United States Embassy. Literary Texts 34 legend revisited Please email us at By : Dr. Raja [email protected] with Khaleel Al-Khalili Michael Paris of the University of any changes of name or address. Central Lancashire reviews Will If you do not wish to continue Kaufman's biography of receiving this magazine, please American roots legend Woody send an e-mail with the word Why Obama Guthrie. Unsubscribe and your subscrip- can‘t close tion number in the subject line. 35 Culture 21 Guantánamo By R. J. Ellis, University 37 History of Birmingham Follow the ASRC on Twitter 40 Literature @AStudies Scan this QR or Facebook. code to An American follow us on http://www.facebook.com/AmStuds 43 Facebook Trilogy Dr Robert Macdonald reviews 3 books on mapping America 2 Why all the marsupials? An Interview with Jonathan Lethem Conducted by James Peacock Jonathan Allen Lethem is a novelist whose work is a genre-bending mixture of detective and science fiction. mean, I think that for what- In 2005 he received a MacArthur Fellowship, the so- ever reason the way I was called ―genius grant.‖ The interview took place on 25 introduced to the very appeal- May 2009 in Brooklyn, and I would like sincerely to ing examples of genre in nar- thank Jonathan Lethem for his time, patience and rative when I was introduced generosity. This is an edited version; the full interview to them—perhaps because it can be read in the online edition of American Studies was simultaneous with so many other introductions; I Today. was all at once reading Ray- James Peacock is Lecturer in English and American Literatures at Keele mond Chandler, Agatha University Christie, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Graham Greene Q So this question of genre is course of the wanderings of and Kafka—it declared itself obviously an important one, decades of story writing. Go to me as a matter to be and I‘m almost nervous in back to something like ―Light looked at as well as relished… bringing up the topic because and the Sufferer‖—is that a you always get asked about it. quarter of a century old for And maybe this has to do But it strikes me that some of me now? I mean, it‘s old, it‘s with my parents‘ relationship the characters are often very old! But I‘ve certainly ob- to cultural practice in general, conscious of the fact that served the same thing you with their bohemianism, they‘re in these kinds of genre have, which isn‘t the same which put a lot of things in collisions or mutations. I thing as crediting it as inten- embracing quote marks…. My mean, the obvious example is tional. I write meta- mother relished old black and ―Light and the Sufferer,‖ generically, and the moment white movies, but she did that when the character says, ―‗Of someone introduced that the way a pothead who also course it‘s weird [. .] it‘s word I felt I could embrace it. likes The Harder They Come f***ing weird, it‘s science For me it‘s analogous to the and Yellow Submarine likes a fiction.‘‖ But you could also layers of cultural self- Humphrey Bogart movie—not argue, I think, that Metcalf consciousness that I write entirely straight. My father— [protagonist of Lethem‘s de- about, for instance, in a char- well, he was a mid-century but novel Gun, With Occa- acter like Dylan Ebdus, who American, fine arts painter. sional Music] seems aware listens to the music he listens What was the turn that de- that he‘s in a kind of genre to with paradigms of class fined his generation? It was fiction… Is that something and race and social position- the turn from Abstract Ex- intentional, that the charac- ing or social implications pressionism, which was like a ters have a kind of reflexive around the music, helplessly. pure high Modernism, to the awareness of what‘s happen- And he still has a very deep Pop artists, reclaiming im- ing with the genre? and, I would even say, or- agery but in an ironised ganic relationship to music as sense. So I was introduced A Well, I mean, ―intentional‖ is I do to storytelling or to simultaneously to the notion a difficult word because it genre, but he‘s in a way that art was trying to purify sounds that I‘ve planned a equally organically self- itself and reach this exalted certain motif across the conscious. And I‘m that. I kind of Philip Guston, Mark 3 Rothko, high Modernist, sub- thing that‘s most difficult to lime mountain top, but that it comprehend. was also somehow always A Right. Well, I‘ll speak very going to collapse back, as simply about that book. It Guston personally did, into was for me unmistakably a bubblegum wrappers and very, very definite step into comic books and Klansmen something more emotionally and googly eyes and funny direct. You know, I‘m very marks on the page that re- proud of the three books that minded you of food and preceded it in different ways. funny faces. So I was just Amnesia Moon is kind of an born into this complexity. ugly duckling that carries so Girl in a landscape many of my teenage yearn- ings, and it‘s the sort of book I Q The novel that for me was first wanted to write. I sort of most affecting was Girl in a managed to do one, and then Landscape. It‘s the moment I realised ―Oh, I‘m going to be when I realised I did actually forced to grow or be different enjoy your work. I‘d read a than that,‖ but it still carries couple of novels and I‘d al- this code of my earliest yearn- ways felt, ―Okay, that‘s inter- ings. And I think As She esting‖ but I wasn‘t quite sure like hiding in plain sight. No Climbed across the Table, in a that I was actually enjoying one‘s ever going to know how very indirect way, is also very your work until I read Girl in autobiographical I am be- emotional and people some- Landscape. It‘s the one cause all they‘re going to do times catch it. I feel there‘s a where I first had that emo- is think about how absurdly kind of cleverness to that tional connection, partly be- removed from the everyday book and I feel that I pulled cause I happened to read it this book is. But it was also a off a kind of magic act with the year my mother died, in way of calling my own bluff; I the ending. You only get a 2003. So suddenly with the wanted to write a teenage gift like that once or twice, so use of genre, I thought ―Ah, girl‘s coming-of-age story and I‘m very fond of that book…. okay; there‘s a psychological make it as emotionally stark and dangerous as the best By New York standards I‘m not particularly loud or books I saw in that genre… it aggressive. But there I was constantly cast in this role was a way of raising the stakes. If I put my own of the guy who was too loud, too sarcastic, because mother‘s death in the first people are really gentle and soft-spoken, mellow with part of the book, I would have each other and very easily disconcerted or affronted if to commit to an emotional level that would transmit you kind of get wound up…. throughout the rest of the book. I‘d have to sustain it to be worthy of giving the reality here that‘s being But Girl in Landscape was a book—burdening the book, tapped into.‖ The critic Darko transforming book for me and you might say—with that Suvin uses the term ―novum‖ one of the ironies is that The event.