Abstract
This article explores and contextualizes the issue of 'precarity' in twenty-first century labour markets with reference to works of short and long-form fiction by two important American writers at work today. These fictions by George Saunders (widely viewed as a master of the contemporary short story) and Dave Eggers (a unique present-day instantiation of the 'literary entrepreneur'), are equally pre-occupied with the nature and meaning of the broad shift to service industry employment since the 1970s. Both 'Sea Oak' and A Hologram for the King explore with great critical incisiveness the social and psychological impact of various 'affective' forms of labour associated with these industries on the already fragile self-conceptions of the American working- and middle-class. The article then contextualizes and develops some insights derived from these texts and examines them in the light of Eggers' own efforts to re-think approaches to material production within the American publishing industry.
Keywords
Dave Eggers, post-industrial, precarity, George Saunders, neoliberalism
How to Cite
Hutchison, A., (2013) “Immaterial World: Precarity and Post-Industrial Labor in George Saunders's 'Sea Oak' and Dave Eggers's A Hologram for the King”, C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings 2(1), 5–21.