It Didn't Mean Anything: A Psychoanalytic Reading of American Detective Fiction

by Alexander N. Howe

This critical study of American detective fiction examines the history and development of the detective genre through the lens of psychoanalysis. Applying the ideas of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, the author identifies and categorizes popular works according to the fictional protagonist's hysteria, obsessive neurosis, perversion or psychosis.

The first chapter identifies several instances of hysteria within the fiction of two of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786434546
• ISBN13: 9780786434541
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: McFarland & Company
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher