Narrazioni decentrate. Suburbs, minimalismo, e "regionalità" nei racconti di John Cheever e Raymond Carver

Decentered Narratives. Suburbs, Minimalism, and ‘Regionality’ in the Stories of John Cheever and Raymond Carver · Although the label of literary minimalism is still a controversial one, typical elements of such a tradition in the American short story mainly deal with the representation of marginal places and existences located in the outskirt of great cities. Through a comparison of the ways in which life in the suburbs is depicted in particular in the stories of John Cheever and Raymond Carver, the article focuses on strategies deployed by the minimalist writers to develop what might be considered as a renewed attention to these lives in the periphery. In the wake of Neil Campbell’s recent notion of «affective critical regionality», I will thus highlight the ethical-aesthetical outcomes of a passage from a general idea of regionalism – often associated with American suburbs – to the more fertile notion of regionality that emerges from the analysis of the texts.