Visual Devices in Contemporary Prose Fiction ─ Gaps, Gestures, Images

Visual Devices in Contemporary Prose Fiction: Gaps, Gestures, Images critically engages with the visual appearance of graphically innovative prose fiction by authors such as Mark Z. Danielewski, B. S. Johnson, Jonathan Safran Foer and Steve Tomasula. This book acknowledges that the reader of any novel looks at and sees the page before they begin to read any of the text placed upon it. Thus, any disruptions to how a traditional page 'should look' can have a significant impact on the reading process and the generation of meaning from the textual narrative.

The main chapters provide a new critical vocabulary for dealing with prose fiction that challenge conventional approaches to page design. Textual Gaps, Textual Gestures and word and picture combinations are categorized according to their use and effects on the reading process. Two case studies offer substantial, extended readings of two critically marginalized novels using the new terminology developed in the main chapters - Raymond Federman's Double or Nothing: A Real Fictitious Discourse and William H. Gass's Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife.
This book will be of interest to any readers interested in experimental, multimodal and visual fiction, from students of literature and literary theorists to anyone with an interest in the possibilities of fiction.

Dr Simon Barton is an Associate Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Salford, UK, where he teaches on Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature modules. He specializes in Modern and Contemporary Literature, with a focus on the experimental and avant-garde.