Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-376) and index.

Introduction: narrating hope in a postmodern world / Emily Griesinger -- The postmodern condition -- Inventing hope : the question of belief in Don Delillo's novels / Mark Eaton -- Voices from within : Gloria Anzalda, Bell Hooks, and Roberta Bondi / AnneMarie Bowery -- Time for hope : the sixth sense, American beauty, memento, and twelve monkeys / Brent Laytham -- Beyond futility : American beauty and the book of Ecclesiastes / Robert K. Johnston -- The valley of despair -- Prosaic grace : Doris Betts's souls raised from the dead / Martha Greene Eads -- Narrative bones : Amy Tan's Bonesetter's daughter and Hugh Cook's homecoming man / Elaine Lux -- Hope from a radio : Jurek Becker's Jakob the liar / Eric Sterling -- Friendship and hope : Elie Wiesel's the town beyond the wall / Carole J. Lambert -- Resisting the night -- A passion for the impossible : Richard Rorty, John Okada, and James Baldwin / Harold K. Bush, Jr. -- The prophetic burden : James Baldwin as a latterday Jeremiah / Kelvin Beliele -- Reconciliation and hope : confessional narratives in South Africa / Susan VanZanten Gallagher -- Adversity and grace -- Hope in hard times : moments of epiphany in illness narratives / Marilyn Chandler McEntyre -- Geographies of hope / Kathleen Norris and David Lynch Kevin L. Cole -- Attunement and healing : the fisher king / Michael B. Herzog --The gift of grace : Isak Dinesen's Babette's feast / Maire Mullins -- Hope and the imagination -- The redress of imagination : Bernard MacLaverty's grace notes / Barry Sloan -- The search for "deeper magic" : J.K. Rowling and C.S. Lewis / Emily Griesinger -- J.R.R. Tolkien : postmodern visionary of hope / Ralph C. Wood.