Popular Music and American Literary Culture: Reading the Beat

Explores how American Literature has represented the sound and spirit of popular music From the birth of rhythm and blues to the rise of hip-hop, American writers have long grappled with how to capture in words the energy, rebellion, and cultural power of popular music.Popular Music and American Literary Culture traces this complex relationship, offering the most comprehensive exploration yet of how novelists, poets, and playwrights have responded to the sounds that have defined the last eight decades of American life.Kirk Curnutt examines how writers have celebrated, critiqued, and been inspired by the sonic revolutions of their time-from Elvis and Motown to punk and rap-while questioning literature’s ability to match music’s visceral immediacy.Moving from 1950s pulp paperbacks to twenty-first-century drama, Curnutt uncovers how depictions of performers, fans, and media reflect broader debates about art, authenticity, and cultural authority.His wide-ranging readings recover overlooked