In a writing career that spans five decades, John Barth has established himself as the premier writer of the postmodern novel in America. Perhaps more than any other contemporary writer, Barth has managed to combine consistently cutting-edge formal exper...

John Barth has taken what he considers the moribund genre of the traditional novel and has revived it with a series of imaginative and inventive "fictions." Barth writes, "If I were a painter, I would attempt to be as contemporary as Frank Stella, and st...

Mark Grotjahn’s large abstract drawings are so meticulously crafted and striking in effect that, looking at them, I wonder why they don’t excite me more. The pieces are all handsome and, in their own way, masterful. I feel a twinge of guilt for not loving...

In the following excerpt, Walkiewicz maintains that the Möbius strip "Frame-Tale," which opens Lost in the Funhouse, serves as an analogy for the entire collection, which cycles back to its beginning in the final story, "Anonymiad."

In the excerpt below, Woolley argues that self-consciousness in Lost in the Funhouse presents an affirmative interpretation of narrative reflexivity.

Morrell is a Canadian educator, nonfiction writer and novelist. Highly acclaimed as a science fiction and fantasy, action, and western writer, he is perhaps best known to popular audiences as the author of the books on which the "Rambo" films starring Sylvester Stallone were based. In the essay below, Morrell discusses those stories in Lost in the Funhouse originally written for tape or live performance. He maintains that although the nonprint media stimulated Barth's interest in oral ...