Overview

Prophets in Babylon offers a wholly original perspective on affinities among five California novelists who wrote in the Depression decade. Writers as disparate as Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, Arnold B. Armstrong and Nathanael West all respond to the social and economic uncertainties of the period by the creation of prophet-figures: moral teachers, visionaries, or sacrificial messiahs. These figures build on specifically Californian traditions of utopian experiments to reflect critically upon, and provide constructive practical alternatives to, competitive individualism.

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Reviews

Margaret Jones finds in the novels of the 1930s by five California writers a common tendency toward utopian social ideals and parody of the American, Edenic myth. A valuable analysis of the Edenic myth in its final stronghold in the United States, her book ofers a fresh and original reading of this topic and these novelists. (Steve Olson, Central Washington University) 'Prophets in Babylon' is a discerning, morally engaged study. Its combination of cultural criticism and formal analysis and its illuminating constellation of Steinbeck, Huxley, West, Sinclair and Armstrong make it not only one of the best books ever written on California fiction, but also an important contribution to the scholarship on American fiction of the 1930s. (Leonard Neufeldt, Purdue University) The study is well researched and a welcome addition on California's literary heritage. (D.W. Madden, Choice)

Author Information

The Author: Margaret C. Jones is an assistant professor of English at Central Washington University in the U.S.A. A British citizen, she received her B.A. and M.A. from the University College of North Wales, Bangor, and her Ph.D. from Purdue University. She has published scholarly articles, journalism and short fiction.

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