ABSTRACT
Throughout the years, Auster, Jarmusch and Waits have been loyal to their imagined America. Their narrative has remained anchored to the resistance tradition of Walt Whitman that agonises in front of the choices of the real country but never abandons its democratic dream for the realisation of a truly free and egalitarian humanity. Taking the side of the least fortunate in the inequality spectrum in America, the fiction examined in this book conveys a harsh verdict on a prevailing contemporary American culture of self-indulgence, consumerism, individualism and materialism. These works anticipated the problems that dominate the public debate of today. More importantly, they insist on a message of human bonding and solidarity as an antidote to the radical inequality within the American nation.
