'A stylishly written monograph that is packed with interesting readings of contemporary American novels.'The Cambridge Quarterly'The Quiet Contemporary American Novel urges us to consider "quiet" as a dynamic force and, indeed, by concluding with some of the more troubling aspects of quiet as represented in Cole and Lerner’s novels, it enacts that dynamic – propelling further, deeper contemplation.'European Journal of American Culture'In The Quiet Contemporary American Novel, Rachel Sykes boldly attempts to define and problematize a neglected area in the study of twenty-first-century American fiction […] Set within a large framework of two centuries of American culture, their well-researched monograph brings into focus nine contemporary novels […] as well as discussing the works of many other authors, from Thoreau, Melville and Hawthorne to Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Pynchon.'Transatlantica
