The Visual Novel - by Hilary White (Paperback)

About the Book

The first sustained study of visuality in the works of Christine Brooke-Rose, Ann Quin and Brigid Brophy.

Book Synopsis

The Visual Novel situates the work of Christine Brooke-Rose, Ann Quin and Brigid Brophy in relation to developments in the visual arts. Focusing on four forms recurring in the novels of these authors - frames, circuits, flesh and crossings - it outlines a trend of increasing visuality throughout the 1960s and 70s as Brooke-Rose, Quin and Brophy began to pose questions about literary and social forms, and the possible relationships between the two. With questions of form coming back into critical interest, Hilary White revisits the work of these decades to develop a new understanding of visuality as it relates to literary study and consider the potential for disrupting disciplinary space through writing and rewriting. As the first book to address the work of Brooke-Rose, Quin and Brophy in tandem, this volume asserts the continued relevance of these three important, but often overlooked, authors to discussions of visual form and (in)discipline in writing, aesthetics and politics.

Review Quotes

A tour de force that brings new life to its subject matter, and will no doubt become a staple of visual-textual studies.--Joseph Darlington "Manchester Review of Books"

I read this thoroughly well-structured work of high quality scholarship with pleasure. It delivers a fascinating and convincing interdisciplinary argument with deceptive ease and is highly effective in capturing how Brooke-Rose, Quin and Brophy's diverse works contributed to cutting-edge thinking about the visual, bodies and gender in the 1960s and 1970s.--Glyn White, University of Salford