“Pitch the king”: Ben Fountain’s games

Abstract

In his stories and his novel, Ben Fountain uses games as an epistemological tool. Games allow him to subvert the cultural codes, his satire becoming a political critique of the nation and of US foreign policy, and to operate a fusion of the characters’ voices, as he looks for a collective or transpersonal expression. He ultimately plays with his readers, inviting them to be active recipients and discoverers.

Keywords

• Ben Fountain
• game theory
• narratology
• satire
• Vodou
• foreign policy