"Stepping Off the Edge addresses the question of literary edges and endings in contemporary works of literature from France, the United States, Canada, and Latin America. The book includes discussion of works by nine different authors, including Anne Carson, Marie NDiaye, Paul Auster, and Câesar Aira. It considers the way that specific texts identify and interrogate textual boundaries, and also draw attention to questions of closure. Each of these texts also reflect on the way we experience and write about edges and endings in our lives"--

Anne McConnell is a Professor in the English Department at West Virginia State University. She specializes in contemporary literature and critical theory from France, Latin America, and the United States. She published Approaching Disappearance with Dalkey Archive Press in 2013, focusing on the work of Maurice Blanchot. She currently teaches world literature, critical theory, and writing at West Virginia State University.

INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: LOCATING, RELOCATING, DISLOCATING THE EDGE OF THE TEXT
Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red
Valeria Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth
CHAPTER 2: TANGIBLE GHOSTS: WRITING AFTER LIFE
Paul Auster’s “Portrait of an Invisible Man”
Anne Carson’s Nox
Maggie Nelson’s Jane: A Murder
CHAPTER 3: SELF-PORTRAIT FROM THE OUTSIDE
Marie NDiaye’s Self-Portrait in Green
César Aira’s How I Became a Nun
Marie Redonnet’s Candy Story
CHAPTER 4: WRITING THE END OF RELATION
Marguerite Duras’s The Malady of Death
Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
Lydia Davis’s The End of the Story
CHAPTER 5: APPROACHING THE END OF THE WORLD
César Aira’s Shantytown
Paul Auster’s The Country of Last Things