Dominic Smith: The Literature of Delusion (January 2008)

Self-deception, religious mania, grandiose visions—these are among the forms of delusion Dominic Smith presents, as he discusses its usefulness to fiction writers for its ready-made conflict with reality. Through close readings of fiction by Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Ken Kesey, William S. Burroughs, and James Hogg, Smith shows how writers have successfully rendered delusion’s internal logic and innate drama, and how their delusional characters can help us see ourselves.