What happens to American fiction in a time when villains are deprived of their villainy; when our consumer culture relentlessly insists on happy endings? In Burning Down the House, Baxter delves into the dramatic way that social and political circumstances influence the “urgent issues of storytelling.” Did Richard Nixon start a trend of dysfunctional narration that is now rife throughout fiction? Why do we seem to have forgotten the true meaning of epiphany? Burning Down the House is Baxter’s first collection of nonfiction and proves he has an equally strong gift for the art of the essay.