ABSTRACT
Providing finishing remarks to the book, this chapter traces the general tendencies found in the novels discussed in the third chapter. It also notes the differences between the novels written by white Americans with those written by members of disenfranchised minorities on the example of Colson Whitehead and Tommy Orange. It argues that the increased focus on poverty is particularly a trait of fiction written by members of groups holding a privileged position in society, and was caused by how the 2007/8 crisis and subsequent Great Recession made members of such groups aware of their increased precarity and decreased social mobility, along with a number of other issues directly linked to a neoliberal economy. As a result, this can be seen as a crisis of the American Dream, the belief in which had detracted attention from the instability of the economy, the increasing inequalities in the US, and the various structural barriers that hamper one’s chances of realizing this ideal. This can also be associated with the increased attention these novels pay to the social aspects of capitalism and consumption, which often follow the principles of Jameson’s cognitive mapping. The chapter also notes the findings of the study in light of Shaw’s “crunch lit,” Fisher’s capitalist realism, and Kendall’s framing of class.
