Authors Inc. - by Loren Glass (Paperback)

About the Book

An investigation of how popular modernist writers handled their fame.

Book Synopsis

The first comprehensive and systematic study of literary celebrity in the twentieth-century United States, Authors Inc. focuses on the autobiographical work of Mark Twain, Jack London, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer. Through these classic American authors, Loren Glass reveals the degree to which literary modernism in the United States is inseparable from the mass cultural forces it opposed.
Chronicling the emergence of literary celebrity in the late nineteenth century up through its contemporary manifestations, Glass focuses on how individual authors themselves struggled with the conditions of mass cultural renown. Furthermore, by emphasizing the complex relation between masculinity and modernist authorship in the United States, the book provides a bracing new account of the psychosexual economy of the American profession of authorship.
By combining a socio-historical approach with a rhetorical analysis of the autobiographical work in which classic American writers attempted to intervene in the formation of their public personae, Authors Inc. offers a long overdue study of one of the most important, and neglected, aspects of modern American literature.

Review Quotes

"A fascinating exploration of the relationship among modern authorial celebrity, the rise of the mass market, and the crisis of masculinity at the turn of the twentieth century. This crisply argued book unites sophisticated theoretical arguments about the changing shape of subjectivity in American culture with attentive literary readings and careful historical scholarship."--Janice Radway, Duke University

"A richly rewarding, insightful, and engaging study."-- "American Literary Realism"

"Glass offers insightful readings of such books as Stein's Everybody's Autobiography(1937) and Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon (1932)."-- "The Journal of American History"

"Glass provides a novel, nuanced, and sound critical perspectives on the productive interaction of seemingly opposite forces: modernism and the mass market."-- "Choice"

"Provocatively and deftly tackles the question of literary celebrity in modern America. A smart and combelling book that has broken through the silence on literary celebrity, and it will serve as the foundation for other inquiries into this complex phenomenon."-- "The Hemingway Review"