Prologue 3
PART Ⅰ: The Hero and the World 9
1.The Modern Self in Recoil 11
2.The Dialectic of Initiation in America 34
3.Contemporary Scenes: The Victim with a Thousand Faces 61
PART Ⅱ: The Forms of Fiction 97
4.The Pattern of Fictional Experience 99
5.Encounter With Necessity: Styron， Swados， Mailer 124
6.The Qualified Encounter: Buechner， Malamud，Ellison 153
7.Encounter With Possibility: Cold， Cheever，Donleavy 180
PART Ⅲ: The Individual Talent 203
8.Carson McCullers 205
9.Truman Capote 230
10.J.D.Salinger 259
11.Saul Bellow 290
Epilogue 325
Bibliographical Notes 339
Index 357