Post-industrial America and Neo-imperialism in Russell Banks’s Novel Rule of the Bone
Post-industrial America and Neo-imperialism in Russell Banks’s Novel Rule of the Bone

Summary/Abstract: Russell Banks’s Rule of the Bone (1995) is a rare instance of a contemporary socially engaged American novel of development and maturation that rests, as this paper argues, on a systemic analysis of post-industrial Western reality and contemporary forms of Western-led imperialism. Grasping this reality and not coming to terms with it constitutes an essential part of the adolescent’s trajectory of growth and maturation. Rule of the Bone is America’s post-industrial working-class novel of maturation, the understanding of which lies at the intersection of Marxist and postcolonial theory. The novel addresses these complex social issues on a more basic but still insightful level accessible to teenagers and at the same time on a more intricate level that easily engages a more informed adult readership. In this sense, Rule of the Bone stands for what can be termed a crossover novel. Targeted primarily at an adult readership, it can prove to be of huge benefit to adolescents seeking to break out of the generic confines of contemporary, mainstream adolescent literature.

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