Gift of Story

Emily Griesinger is Professor of English at Azusa Pacific University.Mark A. Eaton is Associate Professor of English at Azusa Pacific University.

• AcknowledgmentsPrefaceIntroductionSection 1: The Postmodern Condition1. Inventing Hope: The Question of Belief in Don DeLillo's Novels, Mark Eaton 2. Voices from Within: Gloria Anzald??a, bell hooks, and Roberta Bondi, Anne-Marie Bowery3. Time for Hope: The Sixth Sense, American Beauty, Memento, and Twelve Monkeys, D. Brent Laytham4. Beyond Futility: American Beauty and the Book of Ecclesiastes, Robert K. JohnstonSection 2: The Valley of Despair5. Prosaic Grace: Doris Betts's Souls Raised from the Dead, Martha Greene Eads6. Narrative Bones: Amy Tan's Bonesetter's Daughter and Hugh Cook's Homecoming Man, Elaine Lux7. Hope from a Radio: Jurek Becker's Jakob the Liar , Eric Sterling8. Friendship and Hope: Elie Wiesel's The Town Beyond the Wall, Carole J. LambertSection 3: Resisting the Night9. A Passion for the Impossible: Richard Rorty, John Okada, and James Baldwin, Harold K. Bush, Jr.10. The Prophetic Burden: James Baldwin as a Latter-Day Jeremiah, Kelvin Beliele11. Reconciliation and Hope: Confessional Narratives in South Africa, Susan Van Zanten GallagherSection 4: Adversity and Grace12. Hope in Hard Times: Moments of Epiphany in Illness Narratives, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre13. Geographies of Hope: Kathleen Norris and David Lynch, Kevin L. Cole14. Attunement and Healing: The Fisher King, Michael B. Herzog15. The Gift of Grace: Isak Dinesen's Babette's Feast, Maire MullinsSection 5: Hope and the Imagination16. The Redress of Imagination: Bernard MacLaverty's Grace Notes, Barry Sloan17. The Search for ""Deeper Magic"": J. K. Rowling and C. S. Lewis, Emily Griesinger18. J. R. R. Tolkien: Postmodern Visionary of Hope, Ralph C. WoodWorks CitedList of Contributors

The Gift of Story addresses a vital theme--that of Hope--in contemporary fiction, film, and philosophy, focusing on the Christian tradition as a response to the "postmodern" climate of fragmented hopes and fears at the turn of the twenty-first century. The book's essays find surprising expressions of hope in the novels and movies they examine, and are themselves efforts to find and express hope. --Will Katerberg, Calvin College