American Night: The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War
FAIN: FA-55266-10
Alan M. Wald
Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1382)
"American Night" (projected length, 750 manuscript pages) is the concluding volume of a ten-year project, a trilogy contracted with the UNC Press. Unlike previous scholars of the tropism of writers toward the Left, my emphasis in Vol. 3 is on post-World War II. The mass radicalization of writers, emerging during the Depression and rise of fascism, is a monumental turning point. Yet the post-World War II fate of writers in this tradition is likewise spectacular. In what fashion was that initial commitment renewed? How did it persist, when writers contended not only with U.S. domestic repression, but also the disclosure of crimes in the USSR and allegations (many true) of espionage? How did writers express Left sensibilities as they gravitated to popular forms? As Communist convictions atrophied, in what ways did alternative identities of writers--as African Americans, Jews, women, New Leftist, or anti-Communists--take shape?