AMERICAN LITERATURE IN TRANSITION, 1970–1980 American Literature in Transition, 1970–1980 examines the literary developmentsofthetwentiethcentury’sgaudiestdecade.Foraquar- ter century, filmmakers, musicians, and historians have returned to the era to explore the legacy of Watergate, stagflation, and Saturday Night Fever, uncovering the unique confluence of political and eco- nomicphenomenathatmaketheperiodsuchabafflingtime.Liter- aryhistorianshavenevershownmuchinterestintheera,however–a remarkableomissionconsideringwritersasdiverseasToniMorrison, Thomas Pynchon, Marilyn French, Adrienne Rich, Gay Talese, Norman Mailer, Alice Walker, and Octavia E. Butler were active. Over the course of twenty-one essays, contributors explore a range ofcontroversialthemesthesewriterstackled,from1960snostalgiato feminismandtheredefinitionofmasculinitytosexualliberationand rock’n’roll.OtheressaysaddressNewJournalism,theriseofblock- busterculture,memoirandself-help,andcrimefiction–alldemon- stratingthattheMeDecadewasnothingshortofmesmerizing. kirk curnutt is Professor and Chair of English at Troy Univer- sity in Alabama. He is the author of fifteen books of fiction and criticism,includingTheCambridgeIntroductiontoF.ScottFitzgerald (Cambridge, 2007), Coffee with Hemingway (2007), and Reading Hemingway’sToHaveandHaveNot(2016).Amemberoftheboards of both the Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald societies, he hasservedasmanagingeditorofTheF.ScottFitzgeraldReviewsince 2003. american literature in transition American Literature in Transition captures the dynamic energies transmitted across the 20th- and 21st-century American literary landscapes. Revisionary and authoritative, the series offers a comprehensive new overview of the established literarylandmarksthatconstituteAmericanliterarylife.Ambitiousinscopeand depth, and accommodating new critical perspectives and approaches, this series captures the dynamic energies and ongoing change in 20th- and 21st-century American literature. These are decades of transition, but also periods of epochal upheaval.Thesedecades–theJazzAge,theGreatDepression,theColdWar,the sixties,9/11–areturningpointsofrealsignificance.Butinatumultuouscentury, thesetermscanmaskdeeperstructuralchanges.Eachoneofthesebookschallenges indifferentwaysthedominantapproachestoaperiodofliteraturebyshiftingthe focus from what happened to understanding how and why it happened. They elucidate the multifaceted interaction between the social and literary fields and capturethatera’splaceintheincrementalevolutionofAmericanliteratureupto thepresentmoment.Takentogether,thisseriesofbooksconstitutesanewkindof literaryhistoryinacenturyofintenseculturalandliterarycreation,acenturyof liberationandalsoofimmensedestructiontoo.Asarevisionaryprojectgrounded inpre-existingdebates,AmericanLiteratureinTransitionoffersanunprecedented analysisoftheAmericanliteraryexperience. Booksintheseries AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1910–1920 editedbymark w. van wienen AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1920–1930 editedbyichiro takayoshi AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1930–1940 editedbyichiro takayoshi AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1940–1950 editedbychristopher vials AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1950–1960 editedbysteven belletto AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1960–1970 editedbydavid wyatt AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1970–1980 editedbykirk curnutt AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1980–1990 editedbyd. quentin miller AmericanLiteratureinTransition,1990–2000 editedbystephen j. burn AmericanLiteratureinTransition,2000–2010 editedbyrachel greenwald smith AMERICAN LITERATURE IN TRANSITION, 1970–1980 edited by KIRK CURNUTT TroyUniversity UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,20thFloor,NewYork,ny10006,USA 477WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,vic3207,Australia 314–321,3rdFloor,Plot3,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre,NewDelhi-110025,India 79AnsonRoad,#06-04/06,Singapore079906 CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107150768 doi:10.1017/9781316584484 (cid:2)C CambridgeUniversityPress2018 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2018 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabySheridanBooks,Inc. AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary isbn978-1-107-15076-8Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracy ofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. Contents ListofIllustrations pageviii ListofContributors ix Chronology xiv Introduction:SuckingintheSeventies 1 KirkCurnutt part i themes 1 IntheShadowofthe1960s:“WhatDoWeDoNow?” 23 MatthewLuter 2 “It’sNotOkaywithMe”:The1970sWaragainstNostalgia 37 StevenGoldleaf 3 “WeInterruptThisProgram”:NarrativesinConflictin AmericanPostmodernLiteratureofthe1970s 52 EricG.Waggoner 4 “AllintheFamily”:AncestralVoicesandAncestralGodsin 1970sMulticulturalism 72 ChristopherDouglas 5 “AnElementofPresentDanger”:Jogging,Football,and AnxietiesofVulnerabilityin1970sSportingLiterature 88 RyanHediger 6 “TheZiplessFuckisAbsolutelyPure”:SexualLiberationand 1970sAmericanLiterature 102 DaleM.Bauer v vi Contents part ii genres and the business of literature 7 OurStories,OurSelves:MemoirandSelf-Helpinthe “MeDecade” 117 NicoleStamant 8 “(NotJust)KneeDeep”:BlackWritingbetweenSoulandthe Mainstream 132 MichaelHill 9 GreenLettersinaDecadeBlackwithInk:American EnvironmentalWritinginthe1970s 148 WillElliott 10 FutureShocks:ScienceFictionTransformationsinthe1970s 167 RobinA.Roberts 11 DeathWishes:CrimeLiterature,Violence,andDetectivesin theAmerican1970s 182 LindaWagner-Martin 12 TheGreatAmericanNovelinthe1970s 196 TomPerrin 13 TheBestsellerandtheBlockbusterMentality 210 PhilipMcGowan 14 “DotheHustle”:Showmanship,Publicity,andtheChanging LandscapeofLiteraryAuthority 226 TomCerasulo part iii cultural engagements 15 FirsttoWrite:The1970sandtheVietnameseWar 243 AlexVernon 16 NixonBurning:TheAntiestablishmentTurnin1970s AmericanPoliticalWriting 262 DavidSeed 17 TheMaturationoftheNewJournalisminthe1970s 281 EveretteE.Dennis 18 RockisDead/LongLiveRock:PopularMusicin1970s AmericanLiterature 304 KirkCurnutt Contents vii 19 TheConfessionalTurn:MasculinityandAmericanLiterary Cultureinthe1970s 337 JamesPenner 20 TheFeminist1970s 352 SamMcBean 21 BloodonthePage:TheDecadeGetsItsPeriod 365 DavidLinton Conclusion:KeeponTruckin’ 381 KirkCurnutt WorksCited 388 Index 440 Illustrations 18.1 Artworkfrom“Pam’sSecretSongs”byA.Ascot,Star2 (March1973):64,courtesyofwww.ryanrichardson.com page319 18.2 Textfrom“Pam’sSecretSongs”byA.Ascot,Star2(March 1973):64,courtesyofwww.ryanrichardson.com 320 18.3 “Wreath(PoemforKeef)”byPattiSmith,RockScene Magazine6.1(February1978):13,courtesyofwww .ryanrichardson.com 323 19.1 PublicityphotoofcastfromthestageproductionOh! (cid:2) Calcutta!,January12,1980.PhotobyKennDuncan C Billy RoseTheatreDivision,TheNewYorkPublicLibraryforthe PerformingArts 345 viii Contributors dale m. bauer,ProfessorofEnglishattheUniversityofIllinois,Urbana– Champaign, has written three books: on Bakhtin and feminism, on Edith Wharton’s politics, and, most recently, on Sex Expression and American Women Writers, 1860–1940 (2009). Bauer is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Writ- ing (with Phil Gould, Cambridge, 2001) and The Cambridge History of AmericanWomen’s Literature (Cambridge, 2012). Her current project is on US women’s serial fiction from E. D. E. N. Southworth and Ann StephenstoLauraJeanLibbeyandMaryJaneHolmes. tom cerasulo isProfessorofEnglishandDivisionChairofHumanities andFineArtsatElmsCollegeinChicopee,Massachusetts.Hehaspub- lished on film adaptations, on ethnicity, and on the cultural history of American authorship. He is the author of the book Authors Out Here: Fitzgerald, West, Parker, and Schulberg in Hollywood (2010) and is cur- rentlyresearchingaprojectonwritersandthetelevisionindustry. kirk curnutt is Professor and Chair of English at Troy University in Alabama. He is the author of fifteen books of fiction and criticism, includingTheCambridgeIntroductiontoF.ScottFitzgerald(Cambridge, 2007), Coffee with Hemingway (2007), and Reading Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not (2016). He also serves as managing editor of The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, and is a member of both the boards of the F.ScottFitzgeraldSocietyandtheErnestHemingwayFoundationand Society. everette e. dennis is an author, educator, and institution builder, currently serving as Dean and CEO of Northwestern University in Qatar and holding a professorship at the Medill School of Journal- ism, Evanston. His first two books, The Magic Writing Machine: Stu- dent Probes of the New Journalism (1971) and Other Voices: The New ix