New Readings of the American Novel consists of a series of close readings of eight key American novels from roughly 1880 to 1940. These readings both illustrate the usefulness and richness of contemporary theory and uncover different and unexpected aspects of novels too often taken for granted or, increasingly, dismissed.Peter Messent forcefully applies individual narrative theories (on character construction, time and narrative, reader response, dialogics, and so on) to a number of major American novels. In the final chapter, these theories are then brought to bear on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, both to show the flexibility of the models used and to suggest a move in the direction of a widening of the American literary canon to attempt to capture what Sacvan Bercovitch calls "the heterogeneity of America."

Resolutely arguing for the grounding of the literary text in its social and historical context, the author offers students and scholars of American literature a plurality of critical approaches developed in a systematic way. A new introduction to this second edition reflects on the book's critical position in light of recent developments in the field.