A passion for consumption

the long version

"Offering a fresh perspective on the gothic novel in America, this study engages the underlying currents that define American culture as one of consumption through the rereading of canonical texts that range from Hawthorne, Poe, James, and Faulkner to the contemporary gothic novels of Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Anne Rice.". "By exposing the literary motifs of subversion and seduction inherent in these works as disruptive to the flow, circulation, and expansion of value, A Passion for Consumption positions American literary culture as an extension of commodity economics."--BOOK JACKET.