Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: listening.--A whale, an heiress, and a southern demigod: three symbolic Americas.--Benjy Compson, Jake Barnes, and Nick Carraway: replication in three "innocent" American narrators of the 1920s.--The obverse relation: some western flights eastward (in literature and film).--The black/white continuum: some recent examples in Bellow, Malamud, and Updike.--Three applications: Truth's ragged edges: Melville's loyalties in Billy Budd--the commitment of form in the digressions. "The birthplace": James's Fable for critics? Faulkner's revolt against the 1920s: parody and transcendence, continuation and innovation.--Afterword: Knower, doer, and sayer--the James family view of Emerson.