Unhappy Beginnings Narratives of Precarity, Failure, and Resistance in North American Texts

This book has enormous potential to contribute to deconstructing racial, gender, class, and physical disabilities biases through literary and cultural studies criticism. It shows a unique perspective in approaching themes of unhappiness and failure. As the contributions in the monograph stress, reading stories of "failure" and "unhappiness" as characters' rebellion against the harshness and elitism of all sorts of normative frames is more than a way to unmask the unjust social practices: it can also open constructive debates necessary for redefining such social practices.

Nadira Puskar Mustafic, Assistant Professor, International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

This monograph offers an important contribution to contemporary theories within the field of affect studies as it proposes an innovative methodology for the analysis of North American texts that challenge the normative concept of happiness. By focusing on a heterogeneous set of narratives of unhappiness, the monograph aims at questioning forms of oppression in North America, which enriches the field of affect theory.

Rocío Carrasco Carrasco, Dr Philol at the Department of English, University of Huelva, Spain