Alan Palmer: Social Minds in the Novel. Columbus, OH: Ohio State UP 2010. (= Theory and Interpretation of Narrative). 220 pp. USD 49,95. ISBN 978-0-8142-1141-0

“Little narratological work has been done on social minds in the novel” (45).

Narratives detail the multifarious ways in which individual characters fare while entangled in social scenarios. The emphasis in scholarly treatments has over-whelmingly been on the first part of this equation, i.e. single protagonists. The representation of shared experience, as a genuine phenomenon in its own right, has been largely ignored by narratologists. Alan Palmer’s Social Minds in the Novel is thus a timely investigation into, and mapping of, what he also refers to as intermental thought.