"Lately I've been possessed of a singularly unhappy idea: the greatest influence on American fiction for the last twenty years may have been Richard Nixon." What happens to American fiction in a time when villains are deprived of their villainy; when our consumer culture insists on happy endings? Did Richard Nixon start a trend of dysfunctional narration that is now rife throughout fiction? In Burning Down the House, Baxter delves into the social and political circumstances that influence today's "urgent issues of storytelling." Baxter invites unexpected connections: between gossip and characterization; between Puritanism, consumerism, and epiphanies; between violence and data processing. By asking readers to "explore the imagination's grip on daily life and how one lives in the pressure of that grip," Baxter offers a unique perspective into the reading and writing of contemporary fiction.--Front cover flap.