New Fathers? Contemporary American Stories of Masculinity, Domesticity and Kinship

What do novels such as Annie Proulxâ (TM)s The Shipping News, Michael Cunninghamâ (TM)s A Home at the End of the World, and Jayne Anne Phillipsâ (TM) MotherKind have in common with films such as Smoke and Mrs Doubtfire? This study explores the intersection of masculinity and domesticity in contemporary film and literature. It argues that these texts, produced since the 1990s, address with some urgency the notion of â oenew fatherhoodâ in the United States. They offer explorations of the idea that American fatherhood around the turn of the twenty-first century is changing, and they problematize the legitimacy of â oenew fathersâ and â oealternative familiesâ in a national culture where the â oeoldâ patriarch and the nuclear family still often loom large in the imagination of many Americans.