Penn State Deluge - Vol. 2 No. 1 - Spring 2004

The worldwide explosion of electronic mail as a medium of communication presents one of the most formidable challenges to postal mail since the advent of the telegraph and cheap long-distance telephone service. As its impact on everyday life spreads through American culture, authors have started using e-mail's idiosyncratic form as a means of framing or embellishing their recent works of fiction. [1] This newer development owes a fair amount to the epistolary tradition that blossomed in the eighteenth century and helped to mold the beginnings of the modern novel. The epistolary novel and the use of invented letters to convey a story grew popular at that time, as postal mail became a more practical, efficient means of interchange between people in disparate locations.

E-mail narratives share certain characteristics with epistolary novels, and some of the peculiarities and pitfalls that shaped the older form are evident in the novels examined here. But the use of electronic mail and other forms of computer-mediated communication in fiction also signals a willingness to address the trends shaping internet [2] use at a given time and place in society. These narratives are as much about the medium of e-mail and how it has become adopted as an extension of human interaction as they are about falling in love, coming of age, or finding oneself.

This essay summarizes the context into which this new literary subgenre appears and considers four representative novels written partly or entirely as e-mail messages among characters. The novels address: the growing acceptance of e-mail as a means of social interaction beyond its initial purposes in business and academia; the fast adoption of computers by younger generations as well as the digital divide that separates those raised online from those who must choose to learn it; the way in which some correspondents internalize the clipped and often ironic tone of e-mail messages to replicate and critique the hyperactive multitasking that pervades their lives; and the potentially frightening power of computer users who would exploit the internet with questionable motives.

Future authors would do well to acknowledge that the swift advancement of electronic media presents a challenge for creating any e-mail literature that will not become dated before its ink dries. But at the same time, these four novels—published in traditional paper form—capture cultural moments of an ephemeral medium that remains in flux. They are snapshots from the electronic ether, sent from a certain time, place, and set of conditions which may already be passing away. Thus, while their other themes may be more universal, the nature of e-mail and its relationship to the postmodern world of communication almost makes them period pieces before their time.

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[ Contents | Abstract | Intro | I | II | III | IV | V | VI ]
[ Notes | Works Cited | Appendix ]

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