National stories and narrative voice in the fiction of Joshua Ferris

Maxey, Ruth

Abstract

In his début novel, Then We Came to the End (2007), Joshua Ferris narrates his story of a pre-9/11 Chicago advertising agency in the first-person plural. Such narrative experimentation recurs across his fiction and is often linked to national concerns. This essay analyzes narrative voice, personal pro- nouns, and the state of the nation, investigating a writer whose work has received much popular attention but little academic interest to date.

Citation

Maxey, R. (2016). National stories and narrative voice in the fiction of Joshua Ferris. Critique, 57(2), 208-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2015.1019410

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 22, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Feb 16, 2016
• Publication Date: Feb 16, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 6, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 6, 2016
• Journal: Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction
• Print ISSN: 0011-1619
• Electronic ISSN: 1939-9138
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 57
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 208-216
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2015.1019410
• Keywords: Narrative voice; Joshua Ferris; America; Narratology; Collective narrator
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/776169
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2015.1019410
• Additional Information: The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published; and is available in Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 2016 http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00111619.2015.1019410; ; Ruth Maxey, "National Stories and Narrative Voice in the Fiction of Joshua Ferris", Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 57.2 (2016), 208-216, reproduced with permission of Taylor & Francis.