In his book Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America, Jay Parini describes and analyzes three iconic works of fiction. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Parini writes, almost single-handedly created a mass audience for the antislavery movement. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn interrogated race in fundamental ways and introduced a distinctive vision of freedom. And On the Road inspired the Beat Generation and many subsequent countercultural tendencies and movements.

Jay Parini, Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America Anchor, 2010 (paper)

Jay Parini, Borges and Me: An Encounter Doubleday, forthcoming

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