Confronting the Strange: Slipstream literature around the millennium

Abstract

In the effort to map the characteristics of post-post-modern literature in the last two decades, one of the recurring themes is the crossing and blurring of generic borders. "Slipstream" is a term coined in 1989 to refer to a body of works that is located in the space between genre fiction and mainstream literature, characterized by the use of fantastic elements and a mode of writing that emphasizes strangeness. While no conclusive definition of the category has been agreed upon, Slipstream has achieved some degree of recognition and has been the object of a small but significant body of critical work. What I intend to show is that, besides the discourse about genre fiction, Slipstream could provide a key for responding to the claim, made by Richard Gray and others, that American literature has, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, retreated in familiar modes of telling and failed to properly address “the strange”. I will do this though a selection of recent works that have used elements of genre fiction to unsettle familiar narratives.