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The Best American Fiction of the Past 25 Years

Jill

Congrats to Beloved. It is, indeed, an amazing book, and well-deserving of this prize. I’m also glad to see that the runners-up and other nominees included three books by Don Delillo (including my favorite, White Noise), American Pastoral, and A Confederacy of Dunces. But interesting to see who’s making up the list of Best American Writers: of the 25 novels listed, two were written by women. Two (that I know of) are written by people of color. All the rest are by white men.

28 thoughts on The Best American Fiction of the Past 25 Years

  2. Holy Philip Roth, Batman! I mean, the guy’s an excellent writer, but getting five different titles up there?

  4. bejeebus, try it again. all the pretty horses is one of my very favorite books. the writing is spectacular.

  5. I’ve kind of noticed this about the representation of American Literature. For instance, it’s required for my degree that I take Introduction to American Literature, for which I purchase the Norton Anthology of American Literature. Our syllabus is purely white and male, but I don’t understand how I’m supposed to get a firm grasp of American Literature (and thereby Culture, I’m not American) without any women, or writers of colour, or even dealing with the legacy of slavery. I go through the Anthology and there are plenty of women authors, and authors of colour, but we’re not studying a single one of them. Mind you, my professor is really, truely horrid, and very very old, so it’s probably just him, because we studied alot of female writers for British Literature. I kind of question his priorities: we’re studying no less than four of Hawthorne’s works, yet he can’t seem to squeeze in any women or writers of colour? It borders on the absurd, really.

  7. Also, second Jill. I had to read Beloved for my African American history class last spring, and it was magnificent. It’s one of very few novels that i could actually read start to finish.

  8. Well? Who’s going to start the buzz on the women authors if not right here right now? Who should be taking up one of the many slots occupied by Roth and Updike?

  9. Ha Jin? Annie Proulx? Any Joyce Carol Oates (okay, not recently)? Kingsolver? T.C. Boyle? Admittedly, I have a non-canonical list of favorites, but don’t make me keep going.

  10. Personally, I enjoyed Song of Solomon much better than Beloved.

    Other people to replace Roth: Sandra Cisneros, Sylvia Plath for The Bell Jar, Dorothy Allison for Bastard out of Carolina.

  11. …Is it just me, or is this like trying to select the best food of all?

    Or Cynthia Ozick. I vote for Cynthia Ozick.

  13. I love Sherman Alexie.

    If only it was best fiction, not necessarily american. Then we could throw in Marquez and Rushdie.

  14. One of the best books of the last 25 years was written by a guy who died in 1969? Hmmm…

    Well, it did say it was for books published in the last 25 years.

    And I about died when I saw the Lucky Dog wagons around the French Quarter.

  15. oh, I agree with Lauren on the Barbara Kingsolver, actually. I really liked The Bean Trees and wound up reading some more of hers — though not The Poisonwood Bible which is the one everyone recommends.

    And is anyone else surprised The Hours didn’t show up on that list? I was really delighted by that book. Maybe the world isn’t ready for Michael Cunningham. Or maybe he isn’t that good, but I thought it was downright amazing.

  18. Beloved was indeed an excellent book, but I’m not sure I’d choose it as #1. Its social importance is of course obvious, but Morrison’s prose doesn’t do it for me. But maybe that’s just my biases talking.

  19. Her prose definitely takes some getting used to, but I find she’s a much, much better story teller than Roth.

  20. I liked Beloved, but not that much. And it doesn’t surprise me Jill that you like both Marquez and Beloved. I can see a lot of people liking both books. I would put Jane Smiley in the list (if she’s not already there. I can’t get through the link).

  22. Her prose definitely takes some getting used to, but I find she’s a much, much better story teller than Roth.

    That’s a difficult comparison to make, though. I, for instance, read Beloved and then Portnoy’s Complaint shortly after. Apples and oranges, to say the least.

  23. Admittedly, it’s not a nuanced comparison, just a personal preference. It’s been a long time since I looked at Portnoy’s Complaint. Perhaps I should investigate again.

    I will say this about the list: it’s definitely generating a list of things to fetch from the library.

  24. I didn’t like Beloved, but I’m not a very good judge of fiction. I dislike most of the books that people who actually know about literature all seem to have a big hard-on for.

    As for women writers who should be on that list, I vote for Sherri S. Tepper.

  25. It’s impossible to make compile a list like this. There are too many candidates, and it’s all just a matter of opinion.

    I’ll be studying under Molly Giles and Ellen Gilchrist next semester. I’ll make sure to ask them what they think.

  26. I actually do like Roth quite a bit, I just don’t think he should have been on the list four times. American Pastoral? Definitely. The Plot Against America? A very good book, but not one of the best of the past 25 years.

  27. I’m with Nymphalidae, and I’d add Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin. They all three are placed in SciFi/Fantasy; they all three are fantastic storytellers who deserve a place in “literature.”

  28. The Dean’s Decemeber gets snubbed. The night after Saul Bellow died, Princess Grace’s husband got a three minute memorial on ABC Nightly News. Bellow got three paragraphs on their website.

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