“A Case History of Us All”
“A Case History of Us All”
The Adolescent Novel before and after Salinger
This chapter marks three stages in the psychologization of adolescent novels, beginning with the articulation of adolescence as a psychological as well as a literary category, followed by the construction of a problem interior to “young adulthood,” a state marked by confidence and by vulnerability. It emphasizes the positioning of young adult authors, in and around what psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva calls the “adolescent economy of writing.” Because there is less distance between young adult and adult than between child and adult, there is potentially more indeterminacy in the identity of the young adult author, whereas the picturebook psychologist is not easily mistaken for a child. The chapter also argues against the conflation of adolescence with abjection.
Keywords: adolescent novels, adolescence, young adult authors, adolescent economy of writing, Julia Kristeva, abjection
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