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 history Provides analyses of numerous core texts including The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, The Sound and the Fury, The Crying of Lot 49 and Freedom Relates these individual novels to the broader artistic movements of modernism and postmodernism Explains and applies key principles of rhetorical reading Includes numerous cross-novel comparisons and contrasts