The prevalence of alternative families in contemporary American fiction is significant given
the concern and confusion precipitated by the decline in traditional nuclear families in recent
decades. John Irving's The World According to Garp Alice Walker's The Color Purple and E. L.
Doctorow's Ragtime contain compelling utopian depictions of alternative families that are more
egalitarian than traditional nuclear families. John Updike's Rabbit Run and Rabbit Redux are
interesting counterpoints to the optimistic novels of Irving Walker and Doctorow. Although
Updike depicts the traditional nuclear family as the site of considerable ennui and unhappiness
attempts to flee or reconstruct the family in his novels are staggeringly destructive.
