Immersed in fiction, can a reader experience visceral, muscular or tactile sensations? Pierre Patoine here draws on neuropsychology, phenomenology, theories of fiction and cultural and literary studies to explore this intriguing question and to engage with the work of four writers who have left their mark on American literature of the 1990s and 2000s: Dennis Cooper, James Frey, Chuck Palahniuk and Mark Z. Danielewski. Examining the role of empathy, of immersion and of simulation during reading, this pioneering study emphasizes the experience of literature over its interpretation, thus opening toward a redefinition of the value of artistic practices in the early twenty-first century.