Gerald's Party
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 First edition | |
| Author | Robert Coover |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Carin Goldberg[1] |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Linden Press |
Publication date | 1986 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 308 |
| ISBN | 0-671-60655-7 |
Gerald's Party is the fourth novel written by Robert Coover, published in 1986. The book encompasses a single night at a party given by the title character and narrator, Gerald.[2] Though the murder of a beautiful actress is central to the plot, Coover's text has little in common with a traditional murder mystery. He appears to be approaching the murder mystery genre with the goal of subverting/exhausting its possibilities. A comparable strategy can be seen in his retellings of fairy tales (see Briar Rose, A Child Again), and his reframing of movie conventions (Ghost Town, A Night at the Movies). Like most of Coover's works, this is experimental fiction. The text regularly returns to themes of sex, violence, and a blurred boundary between theatre and reality.
