S P > Status Update
S P
added a status update
Who do you think is the best living American novelist writing today? I need to find a way to get back into contemporary American letters, and recommendations would be very much appreciated.
— Aug 04, 2014 04:57AM
3 likes · Like flag
Comments Showing 1-13 of 13 (13 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Jonathan
(new)
Aug 04, 2014 05:00AM
Joseph McElroy
reply
|
flag
Thomas Pynchon. Or, if you want it slightly more recent (and don't mind expanding your concept of "novelist" a bit), William T. Vollmann.
David Vann is pretty amazing. Jonathan Franzen, Jeffrey Eugenides, John Irving and Jonathan Safran Foer are right up there for me, too. (Oops, where are the women?!)
J Frederick wrote: "Joseph McElroy, with Women & Men as a distinct peak. DeLillo. Unfortunately, nothing that contemporary (beside DFW) has retained my interest. @Aubrey: What Carole Maso work would you recommend t..."
I started with Defiance, her most popular work on GR is AVA, multiple friends love The Art Lover: A Novel, soooo. Pick your poison.
joy williams. if you don't mind authors with only a couple of books to their name, helen dewitt & sergio de la pava. second pynchon, delillo, mccarthy as well. steve erickson is worth a look too.
Thank you everyone! I've had my eye on most of the names: Pynchon, McCarthy, McElroy - but this just affirms it. Nice to see a few unknown names too. EDIT: Of course, keep them coming! Oh my. I was doing some searching and just found Anis Shivani wonderfully vitriolic article on: The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers. He is not a Vollmann fan.
James, if you will suffer one more latecomer, Cormac McCarthy and William T. Vollmann. Pynchon and McElroy get honorable mentions, of course, but these two above all.
Oh my. I was doing some searching and just found Anis Shivani wonderfully vitriolic article on: The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers. He is not a Vollmann fan.
i don't remember in what context, but i've read this article before, & thought it was funny. rereading it, not so much. his criticisms of vollmann are essentially that vollmann's writing doesn't fit into easy classifications of 'moral' fiction or 'graceful' prose, which is ironic considering his criticisms of kakutani (whom i admit to not knowing much about, but whose solicitation of delillo seems to contradict the idea that she sticks to a 'native realist mold').
still, though: joy williams all the way. she can do no wrong.
i don't remember in what context, but i've read this article before, & thought it was funny. rereading it, not so much. his criticisms of vollmann are essentially that vollmann's writing doesn't fit into easy classifications of 'moral' fiction or 'graceful' prose, which is ironic considering his criticisms of kakutani (whom i admit to not knowing much about, but whose solicitation of delillo seems to contradict the idea that she sticks to a 'native realist mold').
still, though: joy williams all the way. she can do no wrong.
What would you recommend for Joy Williams, Aidan?
I loved Honored Guest though going by reviews, Taking Care and State of Grace sounds wonderful too. She's probably one of those writers who writes consistently well.
agreed re: consistency. the quick & the dead is excellent as well.
