"A fresh and convincing view of the American imagination."--William Howarth, author of The Book of Concord: Thoreau's Life as a Writer "Examines the metaphor of the house in the work of such diverse writers as Thoreau, Poe, Edith Wharton and Toni Morrison, raising clearly and elegantly questions about the house and the social environment, the house and the psyche, the house and the text, the house and gender. This is a bright, enlightening, and stimulating book."--Diana O. Hehir, author of I Wish This War Were Over