Pulp : Reading popular fiction

Pulp brings together in one volume chapters on the bestseller, detective fiction, popular romance, science fiction and horror. It combines a lucid and accessible account of the cultural theories that have informed the study of popular fiction with detailed readings of particularly Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Colin Dexter, William Gibson, Stephen King, Iain Banks, Terry McMillan and Walter Mosley. Scott McCracken argues that popular fiction serves a vital function in the late twentieth century: it provides us with the means to construct a workable sense of self in the face of the disorientating pressures of modernity.