AMERICAN LITERATURE READINGS IN THE 21ST CENTURY Contemporary American Literature and Excremental Culture American Sh*t Mary C. Foltz American Literature Readings in the 21st Century Series Editor Linda Wagner-Martin University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC, USA American Literature Readings in the 21st Century publishes works by contemporary critics that help shape critical opinion regarding literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14765 Mary C. Foltz Contemporary American Literature and Excremental Culture American Sh*t Mary C. Foltz Lehigh University English Deptartment Bethlehem, PA, USA American Literature Readings in the 21st Century ISBN 978-3-030-46529-2 ISBN 978-3-030-46530-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46530-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland A cknowledgments As I wrote this book, I revised the term “frenemy” to create “frenema,” which I playfully used to refer to those who loosened my intellectual con- stipation and moved me forward with the work. Frenemas, of which there are many, know that this work would not exist without you. American Sh*t began its digestive journey at SUNY Buffalo with the support of a beloved mentor, Tim Dean. At every step or misstep along the way, Tim’s generosity and unwavering support propelled the work; his faith in me as a scholar and the project provided sustenance during the trials of revision and movement toward publication. When you cruise intellectual queer underworlds with Tim, you run into some beautiful and weird sh*t; thank you, Tim, for inviting me to be a part of your queer academic family tree. So, too, Hershini Young provided expert guidance on developing the project. Hershini, thank you for working with me; your time and engagement with my scholarship are some of the greatest gifts in my life. I also thank David Schmid for supporting this project with enthu- siasm and critique. Other faculty at SUNY Buffalo also deserve mention here for their support of my scholarly work in the early years; I offer thanks to Carrie Tirado Bramen, Diane Christian, Mili Clark, Joseph Conte, Joan Copjec, Nathan Grant, Graham Hammill, James Holstun, Stacy Hubbard, Carine M. Mardorossian, Carla Mazzio, Cristanne Miller, Steven Miller, Christina Milletti, Ramón E. Soto-Crespo, and Margarita Vargas. I am indebted to a number of colleagues from Buffalo who read early drafts of material, including my writing group members, Chris Leise, Kevin Pelletier, and Angela Szczepaniak. They gave me the name “Merry Flotsam” and reminded me of the joy that comes with scholarly v vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS production. My thanks also go out to my friend, Christopher Madson, for helping me through as well as Lorna Perez, Ken James, and Ben Joplin. I especially am grateful to Ken James for working with me to co-chair the Samuel R. Delany conference in 2005, where I shared rough material from this manuscript, and his subsequent engagement with my writing on Delany. Thanks also to Chip and scholars of this work for kind feedback during the conference. My community in Buffalo made life full of joyous adventures; I am grateful for the Amy’s Place family, Jill Glowniak, Josh Briggs, Robin Brox, Todd Matina, Tatiana de la Tierra, and the Del Priore family. I maintain love and gratitude for all my Buffalo kin. Upon moving to Lehigh University in 2009, I found a rich community of scholars invested in literature and social justice and awake to the power of the humanities to take the lead in addressing urgent issues in our com- munities. My colleagues provided guidance at every turn in the develop- ment of this project, helped me to secure research leave, and navigate difficult situations. My thanks go out to departmental chairs Barry Kroll and Scott Gordon, who saw me through the tenure process. I forever will be grateful to Scott who answered a “ridiculous” question during a diffi- cult time with a snort and a “no.” This work exists in print because of his generosity. I offer heartfelt thanks to Seth Moglen for always believing in the monograph and Suzanne Edwards for seeing me to the finish line. I also thank Beth Dolan, Dawn Keetley, Barbara Pavlock, Amardeep Singh, Ed Whitley, Kate Crassons, Lyndon Dominque, Michael Kramp, Jenna Lay, Ed Lotto, Stephanie Powell Watts, Bob Watts, Ed Gallagher, Barbara Traister, Donald Hall, and Betsy Fifer. I extend thanks to my Lehigh col- league Breena Holland for keeping the faith and being my partner in civic engagement and public research. The monograph was enriched by partici- pants in my graduate level seminars, especially students in “Contemporary U.S. Literature of Environmental Crisis.” Friends in the Lehigh Valley also deserve mention here. I offer thanks to the TR family and my other LGBTQ groups for keeping me on track as well as Carol Moeller, Gerry Jacobs, and Mary Ann Wert. This project also benefitted from research funding from Lehigh University’s Faculty Research Grant and Paul J. Franz Pre-Tenure Research Fellowships. I am grateful to Alan J. Snyder, Vice President and Associate Provost for Research and Graduate Studies, for supporting humanities research with funding and advocating for the humanities broadly. Additionally, I am grateful for funding to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Summer Institute titled “Rethinking the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii Land Ethic: Sustainability and the Humanities.” Organizers Joan McGregor and Dan Shilling created rich interdisciplinary conversations with scholars in the environmental humanities; I was lucky to develop por- tions of this book at their Institute and to benefit from feedback given by other participants, including Valerie Padilla Carroll, Kristen J. Jacobson, Kyle Whyte, and many others. As I completed the manuscript, I also ben- efitted from guidance about publication offered by the Northeast Modern Language Association team, especially Maria DiFrancesco. Waste studies panels along the way enhanced the research; I am grateful for colleagues’ feedback at ASA, ACLA, ASLE, and NeMLA conferences. American Sh*t lives because of the expert editorial team at Palgrave; thank you Allie Troyanos, Shaun Vigil, Lina Aboujieb, and Rebecca Hinsley. I also extend my gratitude to series editor Linda Wagner-Martin for support during the submission and review process. To the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, thank you for providing constructive criticism and expressing enthusiasm for the project. Two copyeditors deserve men- tion here as well; thank you Kim Singletary from Humanities First and freelance editor Peter Coyne for your assistance as I prepared the manu- script for publication. Finally, I want to thank my family for emotional support throughout this process. In her 70s and 80s, my mother, Margaret A. Foltz, read and reread the full manuscript and maintained enthusiasm from start to finish. My father, Richard D. Foltz, provided unending stories about persever- ance and ceaseless cheerleading. My spouse, Danielle Del Priore, lived through the turbulence of writing with love and undying belief in the work; thank you, love, for sharing your life with me. To the motley crew (Heather, Moonie, Snowman, Little Bit, Carter, Puck, Cutie, Mama, Daisy, and Foxy), thank you for keeping my lap warm, walking by or over my keyboard for a needed distraction, and reminding me to take breaks. Family, you give me life and help me to thrive; your love made this work possible. As Erykah Badu says, “I’m sensitive about my shit,” but my colleagues, friends, and family have made me less so. The gift of their time, criticism, and enthusiasm has blessed this mess. And as the work goes out into the world to be composted in whatever way readers may choose, I remain indebted to all of those listed here and many more for helping me through this intellectual exertion and excretion. c ontents 1 Introduction: On the American Standard: Post-1960 Scatological Fiction 1 2 Soiling the Black Body: Ishmael Reed Engages White Shit 53 3 Battling the Excremental Self: Western Civilization and Its Decomposition in Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections 97 4 Fleeing the Excremental Stain Through Acquisition: Getting to the Bottom of Black Suburban Splendor in Gloria Naylor’s Linden Hills 139 5 Waste as Weapon: Fecal Bombing in Don DeLillo’s Underworld 179 6 Shit and Other Forms of Dynamite Refuse: Samuel R. Delany’s Provocative Excremental Eros 219 7 Conclusion: Decay as Gift: Composting American Shit 257 Index 267 ix CHAPTER 1 Introduction: On the American Standard: Post-1960 Scatological Fiction In his 1987 special titled Raw, Eddie Murphy reflects upon his early days in comedy clubs where his adolescent routines consisted mainly of mate- rial discovered while contemplating his bodily movements and straining on the household toilet.1 He states, My whole act back then was about taking a shit because that was all I had done at fifteen. That was my life experience. But it sounded like Richard Pryor. I’d be going, “Sometimes you get on that toilet and the water splashes up on your ass. Don’t that make you mad?… You know what really make me mad, though, is afterwards, right?… You done all the shitting you gonna do for the whole day, right? You finish shitting and you flush the toilet and wait a second and one chunk come back. What does that chunk want?”2 The audience’s resounding laughter to Murphy’s recollections results from titillation at encountering the abject self that won’t simply go down the drain. While daily engagements with excreta may be distasteful for some, worthy of only a clinical and diagnostic gaze for others, or generally unworthy of serious attention, Murphy gives us room to acknowledge shame, discomfort, and adolescent pleasure by exploring the wastes of the self. By separating his adult identity from the youthful comic of days gone by, Murphy acknowledges the distance that he has traveled from adoles- cence and gives audience members permission therefore to indulge—if © The Author(s) 2020 1 M. C. Foltz, Contemporary American Literature and Excremental Culture, American Literature Readings in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46530-8_1