Narrative Care

The attacks of September 11 are often read as the start of a long period defined by emergencies and suspensions of normal rules, and in that light it makes sense that care became a central political concern in the early 2000s. Drawing on a growing field of theory about biopolitics, this study examines how recent novels represent care. It offers close readings of J.M. Coetzee's Slow Man, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions, and Tom McCarthy's Remainder.

The book also revisits long-running arguments about literary realism, from Ian Watt to Zadie Smith, and recasts them as responses to the biopolitical dimensions of the novel. Its concerns include the novel's links to pastoral care, the camps, and the welfare state.

The central question is what the contemporary novel can offer to a critical aesthetics of existence once it is understood in this way.