American Roadside in Émigré Literature, Film, and Photography

Elsa Court teaches American Literature at Queen Mary University of London, UK. She has previously taught courses on contemporary French culture at the University of Oxford and her work has appeared in Granta, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Financial Times, among others.

• Chapter One: Introduction By the Way: The Roadside as Other Space.- Chapter Two: “Stationary Trivialities”: Life on the Margins in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955).- Chapter Three: “Roadside Eye”: Accidents and Epiphanies in Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958).- Chapter Four: “We’re all in our private traps”: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and the Decline of the American Motel.- Chapter Five: Roadside Chronicles: Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984).- Chapter Six: Conclusion: America Revisited.

“The American Roadside takes the titanic leviathan of the American highway and, through careful unfurling of its ostensibly homogeneous network of routes, turnpikes, and rest stops, lays bare one of the most provocative and indeed recognizable American spaces.” (Will Carroll, Journal of American Studies, Vol. 55 (4), 2021)“Written with brio – especially when the book veers off the highway of academic writing – The American Roadside offers new perspectives on well-known works.” (Douglas Field, TLS The Times Literary Supplement, the-tls.co.uk, January 8, 2021)“Engaging and illuminating study. … Court opens up new inroads for looking at American literary and film history. … The achievement of this highly readable book is to send us back to these otherwise familiar artworks with refreshed, more inquisitive eyes.” (Neil Archer, Review 31, May, 2020)