"In Remapping Southern Literature: Contemporary Southern Writers and the West, Robert H. Brinkmeyer Jr. studies current Southern authors of novels, historical fiction, and contemporary fiction who have been breaking the mold of Southern literature by looking westward. Cut loose, in the postmodern age, from traditional roots in a sense of place, contemporary Southern writers have explored an American West shaped by the myths of lawless freedom and disruptive expansion. The fiction of Doris Betts, Barry Hannah, Cormac McCarthy, Madison Smartt Bell, Richard Ford, Rick Bass, Barbara Kingsolver, Chris Offutt, Frederick Barthelme, Dorothy Allison, and Clyde Edgerton, among others, challenges long-standing definitions of Southern fiction and regional identity and reconfigures the myths of the West that have shaped American life.". "In Remapping Southern Literature, Brinkmeyer proposes that today's Southern writers are not by this shift abandoning Southern culture but are instead expanding its reach by seeking to balance the ideals of the South and West."--BOOK JACKET.