Writing the Modern Family

Contemporary Literature, Motherhood and Neoliberal Culture

Roberta Garrett

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781786605191
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Although a large body of work has emerged which addresses neoliberal representations of the family in other cultural forms (such as parenting advice programmes) little has been written specifically on the family and contemporary literature. This book examines the growing body of autobiographical and fictional writing on family and parenting issues in Anglo-American culture from the late 1990s to the present day.
The book looks closely at six distinct genres which have arisen during this time frame: the misery memoir, the mum's lit popular novel, the maternal confessional, 'dads' lit, the dysfunctional domestic novel and the family noir. Writing the Modern Family will examine the way these burgeoning areas of British and American writing respond to a neoliberal public discourse in which a 'parenting deficit' rather than economic and structural disadvantage, is responsible for increasing inequality in child welfare and achievement. In evaluating these forms and their relationship to neoliberal culture, the book will also consider the complex interrelationship between these genres.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Writing Home: The Return to the Domestic in Women’s Fiction
• 1 I Blame the Parents: Class, Race and Mother-Hate in Contemporary Misery Memoirs
• 2 Novels and Children: ‘Mums Lit’ and the Public Mother/Author
• 3 Maternal Memoirs: Truth, Myth and Resistance in the Work of Chua, Myerson and Cusk
• 4 Fathers Know Best: ‘Dads Lit’ and the Childcare Wars of the Mid-2000s
• 5 Angels and Demons: Mother/Son Conflict and Bonding in the ‘Dysfunctional’ Domestic Novel
• 6 A Home of One’s Own: Domestic Crime Fiction, Motherhood and Property
• Conclusion: A #metoo for Motherhood?
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author