Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. CENTRAL CASTING

Vidal's Empire Strikes Back: Hearst, Hollywood, and the Invention of American Hegemony

Rabbit Rerun: Updike's End of an American Epoch

Cut and Print!: The Gulf War as Movie Narrative in Larry Beinhart's American Hero

II. IMPORTS/EXPORTS

Dennis Potter, Pennies from Heaven, and the Dream of a Common Culture

Flotsam and Peronism in the Novels of Manuel Puig

Murakami Haruki's Garbage-Collecting/Snow-Shoveling Consortium

III. W.A.S.T.E.

A Mother (and a son, and a brother, and a wife, et al.) in History: Stories Galore in Libra and the Warren Commission Report

``Two People Who Didn't Argue, Even, Except over the Use of the Subjunctive'': Jean Harris, the Scarsdale Diet Doctor Murder, and Diana Trilling

Your Trash Ain't Nothin' but Cash: Lawrence Schiller, O.J. Simpson, and the Trial (which one?) of the Century (again?)

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index