Literary Trauma: Sadism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in American Women’s Fiction

.Examines representations of political, psychological, and sexual violence in seven novels by American women. This book examines portrayals of political and psychological trauma, particularly sexual trauma, in the work of seven American women writers. Concentrating on novels by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Pauline Hopkins, Gayl Jones, Leslie Marmon Silko, Dorothy Allison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Margaret Atwood, Horvitz investigates whether memories of violent and oppressive trauma can be preserved, even transformed into art, without reproducing that violence. The book encompasses a wide range of personal and political traumas, including domestic abuse, incest, rape, imprisonment, and slavery, and argues that an analysis of sadomasochistic violence is our best protection against cyclical, intergenerational violence, a particularly timely and important subject as we think about how to stop “hate” crimes and other forms of political and psychic oppression.Literary Trauma: Sadism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in American Women’s Fiction is written by Deborah M. Horvitz and published by Suny Press. ISBNs for Literary Trauma are 9780791491898, 0791491897 and the print ISBNs are 9780791447123, 079144712X. Additional ISBNs include 9780791447116.