Burning Down the House

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What happens to American fiction in a time when villains are deprived of their villainy; when our consumer culture relentlessly insists on happy endings? In *Burning Down the House*, Baxter delves into the dramatic way that social and political circumstances influence the “urgent issues of storytelling.” Did Richard Nixon start a trend of dysfunctional narration that is now rife throughout fiction? Why do we seem to have forgotten the true meaning of epiphany? *Burning Down the House* is Baxter’s first collection of nonfiction and proves he has an equally strong gift for the art of the essay.