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The future of literary fiction

Posted By Christopher Guerin On In books & writing | 12 Comments

I’ve had this habit for years. Now and then I search the book section of Amazon.com for the upcoming books of a certain list of authors. It’s how I know that Kazuo Ishiguro has a book coming out on September 22, Thomas Pynchon on August 4, and Nicholson Baker on September 8. (For a while Amazon was listing a new Philip Roth book for the fall, but that’s disappeared.) As I say, I’ve been doing this for years, ever since Amazon started up more than ten years ago. The list of authors is made up of novelists or fiction writers of high literary quality (I make no apologies whatsoever for that qualification), who have written at least a few excellent novels or short story collections, who, for the most part, can be relied on to turn out another great book every few years. Here’s the list, 46 in all, in no special order: 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Kazuo Ishiguro

Thomas Pynchon

Lorrie Moore

Martin Amis

Annie Dillard

Ian McEwan

T.C. Boyle

Milan Kundera

George Saunders

Nicholson Baker

Jeffrey Eugenides

Nathan Englander

Shirley Hazzard

Salman Rushdie

Jane Smiley

David Mitchell

Francine Prose

Sarah Waters

Jim Harrison

Will Self

Thom Jones

E. L. Doctorow

William Trevor

Zadie Smith

Donald Antrim

Tim O’Brian

Alice Munro

Philip Roth

Haruki Murakami

Ryu Murakami

Joyce Carol Oates

Victor Pelevin

Jonathan Franzen

Kevin Brockmeier

John Barth

Jhumpa Lahiri

Robert Coover

Denis Johnson

Richard Powers

William T. Vollmann

Cynthia Ozick

Michel Faber

Stuart Dybek

Ha Jin

Rivka Galchen 

Until recently, the list included John Updike and David Foster Wallace, of course, and Norman Mailer and, not so long ago, Saul Bellow. Several, including Lorrie Moore, Tim O’Brien, and Jonathan Franzen, haven’t published in some time — I can only hope they haven’t given up hope (though who knows with the depressive Franzen).

It’s a great list that I don’t suggest is all-inclusive — these are the writers that I regularly look forward to reading, having read most of their works with great pleasure and admiration. (Other writers of similar stature, like Julian Barnes, Toni Morrison, John Coetzee, and Rick Moody, I’ve tried, but for some reason leave me cold.) 

But, there’s a problem — the list is pretty much the same as it was ten years ago. Rivka Galchen, the young author of the brilliant “Atmospheric Disturbances,” published last fall, is the latest addition, and I can’t wait for her sophomore effort. George Saunders entered the list a few years ago, though he’s 50, as did Kevin Brockmeier, who is 35. The only other writers under 40 are Nathan Englander (39) and Zadie Smith (34). 

The prescient June 21 $28, 1999 issue of The New Yorker, entitled “The Future of American Fiction,” featured 20 authors, most of whom are on my list. Others, like Chang-re Lee, Edwidge Danticat, Tony Earley, and Ethan Canin, though well-known, have never been on my radar for some reason. Only Matthew Klam seems to have faded away, not having published any fiction since his wonderful story collection Sam The Cat ten years ago. (Also included is Antonya Nelson (49), a writer I keep meaning to read and haven’t gotten around to yet. Maybe this afternoon.) 

So, where is the next generation of great writers? Maybe I’ve just missed it, but there don’t seem to be many hot young writers I’m dying to read. Every now and then a new writer is touted as the real thing, like Marisha Pessl, whose “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” I really wanted to like, because there’s no question she can write, but I found the book in need of editorial assistance to the point of being unreadable. (Rivka Galchen was similarly praised, but with better reason.) 

Maybe I should expect a Galchen to come along only once in five or ten years. You tell me. Post here the names you believe will make up the next generation of writers of high quality literary fiction. 

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Christopher Guerin [4]

Christopher Guerin is the author of two books each of poetry and short fiction, a novel, and more than a dozen children’s books. If he hadn’t spent 26 years as an arts administrator, including 20 years as President of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, perhaps he’d have worked a little harder getting them published. His consolation resides in his fiction and poems having been published in numerous small magazines, including Rosebud, AURA, Williams and Mary Review, Midwest Quarterly, Wittenberg Review, RE: Artes Liberales, DEROS, Wind, and Wind less Orchard. His blog, Zealotry of Guerin, features his fiction and poetry, including his sonnet sequence of poems after paintings, “Brushwork." He is the V.P. of Corporate Communications at Sweetwater Sound, Inc., the national music instrument retailer.
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