This chapter considers the possibility of a form of literary realism fit for the Anthropocene, which would not only allow readers to participate and intervene in the disclosure of climate catastrophe but would also position them within a climate-conscious collective. It begins with a brief discussion of realism, particularly its reliance, as analysed by Fredric Jameson, on an interplay between readerly engagement with actions and consequences and readerly empathy with experiences and emotions. This realist effect is both rich in ethical potential for addressing climate crisis and deepens this crisis’s anthropogenic arrogance. In considering a new form of realism that would avoid this dilemma, the chapter deploys Gerard Genette’s structuralist theories of transtextuality, arguing for the relevance of these ostensibly external, but deeply integrated, aspects of narrative in extending realism’s ethical effects while building a collective consciousness. Using this as a framework, it then discusses two authors whose work, textually and transtextually speaking, responds in some way to climate crisis: Kim Stanley Robinson and Liu Cixin.

This chapter offers a a brief survey of Mailer’s ongoing artistic responses and reactions to the postmodern period. Mailer is indebted to his Modernist predecessors but also experiments with perspective and structure in a way that aligns him more closely with definitions of Postmodernism. While this is most evident in his avant-garde films, it is also apparent in the self-referential nature and thematic focus of his nonfiction, as well as in his preoccupation with notions of metamorphosis.

Any thorough study of Philip Roth requires some understanding of postmodernism: the techniques that define it as well as its place within the timeline of American literary genres. Roth draws from elements of modernism, as many postmodern writers do (considering the inevitable overlap between these movements) and his use of certain postmodern techniques and emphases might be compared to contemporaries like Don DeLillo and Paul Auster. This chapter will consider Roth’s placement as a postmodern author: the way he does and does not fit neatly into that category, his contributions to that particular literary movement, and the way he helped to carve out space for other, later postmodern writers, such as Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Jonathan Lethem.