Introduction.- Chapter 1: Subcultures in Theory.- Chapter 2: Subcultures in Fiction.- Chapter 3: The Young Ones: Teenagers, Teds and Jazz.- Chapter 4: Take a Walk on the Wild Side: Countercultural Fictions.- Chapter 5: Teenage Kicks: Punk Fiction, Punk in Fiction.- Chapter 6: The Black Album: Old and New Ethnicities.- Chapter 7: Girls Just Want to Have Fun: Gender and Sexuality.- Chapter 8: Life on Mars: Sci-Fi, Dystopian and Alternative Subcultures.

This book offers a unique interdisciplinary examination of how youth subcultures have been articulated and constructed in selected fiction from the post-war period to the twenty-first century. It provides a theoretical underpinning for the analysis of subcultures and scenes in literary fiction, identifying approaches set against key theories from subcultural studies, sociology, and criminology as well as paying close attention to issues of literary form, genre and narrative technique. As well as identifying an overlooked body of work in postwar and contemporary fiction, it shows how literary fiction can offer a distinctive contribution to our understanding of youth and marginalized cultures. It offers close analysis of a range of novels organized around key themes and contexts including teenagers, Teds and jazz scenes in the 1950s; Beat writing and the counterculture; punk fiction; dystopian and cyberpunk fiction as well as the examination of works that foreground class, race, gender and sexuality.

 Nick Bentley is Reader in English Literature at Keele University, UK. He is a leading expert in postwar and contemporary fiction, particularly in the literatures of class and marginalization. He is author of Contemporary British Fiction: A Reader’s Guide to the Essential Criticism (2018); Martin Amis (2015); Contemporary British Fiction (2008); Radical Fictions: The English Novel in the 1950s (2007); and co-editor of The 2000s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction (2015), The 1950s: A Decade of British Fiction (2018) and Teenage Dreams: Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media (2018).

“Youth Subcultures in Fiction is a very fine study of the way diverse subcultural experiences have been represented in fiction from the 1950s to the present day. Focussing on matters of narration, invention, and reinvention, it delivers new ways of understanding what we can call the ‘subcultural novel’.” (Ken Gelder, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Melbourne, Australia)

“The tension between how youth cultures are seen and how those who form part of a youth culture see themselves is perennial. In Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Nick Bentley expertly explores how literary depictions of youth culture express, construct, codify and challenge understandings of post-war youth culture. An essential read.” (Matthew Worley, Professor of Modern History, University of Reading, UK, and Subcultures Network)

“Bentley commands not only post-war subcultures, but the field of subcultural studies itself. His claim that subcultural studies have wrongly ignored the influence of fiction is a compelling wake-up call. The method he models here will provide a template for subcultural studies for a long time to come. This is a rare book that not only adds knowledge to a field, but also changes its terms of engagement as well. It truly is brilliant.” (Stephen Ross, Professor of English, University of Victoria, Canada)

“Drawing from the recent turn to imagined discourses in subcultural studies, this book makes vitally important and relevant claims for the centrality of narrative fiction to how we understand youth subcultures. Brilliantly articulated and with insight on every page, its impressive scope makes it essential reading both for fiction and subcultural scholars.” (Sara Upstone, Professor of Contemporary Literature, Kingston University, UK)

“To understand British pop culture you have to know its full 360 where the clothes, the style, the swagger, the walk, the language, the hair, the buttons, the transport and socks mean as much as the music. For the post war decades the subcultures were all defining, creating a different class system in these tribal isles that was all consuming and compellingly creative which this books unravels.” (John Robb, musician, writer, journalist, Louder than War)