Novel Arguments deals with American innovative (postmodern, metafictional, experimental) fiction since the sixties. It advances a concept of the "argument" of fiction to correct criticism's too purely formal interest in innovation. The book closely examines the readings of five important innovative novels by Donald Barthelme, Ishmael Reed, Robert Coover, Walter Abish, and Kathy Acker and shows how they achieve an effective articulation of their concerns by virtue of their innovation, which is aimed at a making new of fictional cognition.