Studies ten American novels from the later twentieth century in the light of theories of narration and of the recent debate on the nature of fiction. After an introduction to the theoretical background, it analyzes works by Malamud, Bellow, Capote, Barth, Doctorow, Morrison, Oates, Ford, Smiley, and Kingsolver, emphasizing the complementary tendencies in American fiction to documentation of historical conditions and to the free play of the creative writer, to factual record and to self-conscious fabulation. It argues that the tension between these two tendencies expresses an acute concern with the limitations of modern life, with the writer's drive to constitute a realm of freedom, and with the challenges of reconciling the two.