The Next Big American Writer

Until 2005 the biggest was probably Saul Bellow, the perennial authors' favourite. Then he died.

A few years on and there are still some biggies tossing out books, some prolifically, like Philip Roth, and others, like Pynchon, after a hefty hiatus.

But one wonders who the next big figure of American letters is going to be. James Salter is 82; Philip Roth and John Updike are 75; Cormac McCarthy is 74; Don DeLillo is 71; Thomas Pynchon is 70; and bringing up the rear is Richard Ford at 64. I suppose you could also put J.D. Salinger, at 89, into the list, even if he hasn't published anything in an age.

Who is going to take the place of these guys when they are gone?

That's an interesting question. (I'd include a few more - Joyce Carol Oates (70) and Joan Didion (74), for instance, but...)

There's a bunch of no-longer-as-young-as-they-once-were authors working in the Great American Novel genre (yes, it's a genre) who are showing signs of mellowing out without necessarily losing their edge; Lethem, Safran Foer, Franzen, Gibson (ooops, Canuck), Eugenides, Chabon... Paul Auster is something of a dark horse. Probably too hung up on the theoretical side of things to ever be mainstream enough, though. In fact, judging from the one Siri Hustvedt book I've read, his wife would probably make a better candidate.

Then there's the mad ones, a little too controversial to ever not be called too controversial; Ellis, Palahniuk, etc... (Then again, wasn't Roth once considered rather scandalous?)

I suppose one problem here is that there's been something of a shift in WHAT and HOW people write. Each generation tries to subvert what the previous one did and how they did it. Hell, doesn't The Sopranos or The Wire come as close to a great American novel as most books?

(And I just realized that this list was almost exclusively white males. I don't know if that says more about my reading habits or the American literary landscape...)

Yes, Roth was and still is scadalous. Portnoy's complaint is filthy and marvelous - he masterbates on the bus and has a girl eat a doughnut of his...

ellis & palahniuk are the only authors listed below that I think deserve a place on the list.

Lets not forget the Johns - Irving & Updike. I think Dan Simmons is getting pretty good too. I am a big Palahniuk fan but I doubt if he'll ever be seen as the type of writer who gets mentioned as the best in America. His minimalist style doesn't have that sophisticated way about it that literary critics tend toward.

Stewart said:

Philip Roth and John Updike are 75

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joderu95 said:

Lets not forget the Johns - Irving & Updike.

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Oh, we've not forgotten Updike. He's one of the old crowd.

Irving? I don't know. I've only read A Prayer For Owen Meany and about sixty pages of The Cider House Rules and he struck me more as a story teller in the big Dickensian way (albeit with excruciatingly longer chapters) rather than someone who could move up with the big hitters.

Sorry, missed that reference to Updike. I don't really subscribe to the idea fully anyway. It is just a reflection of what literature critics endorse and what they do not. There is no way to measure the worth of their writing save for accumulation of more opinion.

A Supreme Court Justice once said "It is pointless to argue taste and even more pointless to litigate it."

Literature needs a renaissance to create writers that are "great" outside the rather myopic walls of academia. It needs to be relevant again and not just to people in college English programs or to literary critics. Literature has to find a way to offer something unobtainable by other more sensuous and relflexively compelling mediums. Some writers are doing this, but they remain a whimper in the scream of today's mass culture. So comparing writers today with writers of the early twentieth century as "great" doesn't seem fair. The landscape has changed almost irrevocably.

ewomack said:

Literature needs a renaissance to create writers that are "great" outside the rather myopic walls of academia. It needs to be relevant again and not just to people in college English programs or to literary critics. Literature has to find a way to offer something unobtainable by other more sensuous and relflexively compelling mediums. Some writers are doing this, but they remain a whimper in the scream of today's mass culture. So comparing writers today with writers of the early twentieth century as "great" doesn't seem fair. The landscape has changed almost irrevocably.

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I think what you say is very true. I thought the question was who will be 'the next generation' of writers whose work will be remembered as is the work of the post war generation.

My list would include
TONI MORRISON
JOAN DIDION
IAN McEWAN
DORIS LESSING (I KNOW SHE'S 88 BUT SHE JUST WON THE BIG PRIZE)
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
A. S. BYATT
RICHARD PRICE
MURIEL SPARK
FAY WELDON
RUTH RENDELL
P. D. JAMES
TOM WOOLF
DENNIS LEHANE


These writers come to mind because their work is exceptional and accessable. I don't think academia has that much influence in the early life of a book and while I do think this and that about writers I am always hesitant to name 'the best of' since no one is perfect. And today the diversity of writers is much larger than when the 'old men' were writing in the 40s and 50s and following.

As for popular writers who crank out books that are 'entertainments' and don't aspire to be do anything else the list is almost infinite from Stephen King to MIchael Crichton and Richard Patterson to J. D. Robb.

What do you think?

GERBAM said:

I thought the question was who will be 'the next generation' of writers whose work will be remembered as is the work of the post war generation.

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It was, and specifically American.

And all white.

One medium that will never change to the assimilation of other cultures is literature. It's paraded by an invisible hand. There will be no such thing as an Asian, Hispanic, Black, or Native American literature, because only "white" literature is where ethnic cleansing is allowed.

I'd throw James Ellroy's name into the mix.

The best of them all...

The best of them all, Raymond Carver would be 70 years old now. Friends of RC also rank up there - Richard Ford (already listed) and Tobias Wolff - both still churning out quality ink on paper.

I have a penchant for short stories, and the Yanks have a good crop of the best proponents of the form - Richard Bausch, Ethan Canin, William Maxwell & the great Richard Yates.

Ahhhh thanks for the thread - I'm off to pick up a story from one of these masters!

Bart.

American Belle Lettres

AHH STEWART I MISSED THE WORD AMERICAN ... SORRY 'BOUT THAT

BUT I NOTICE THAT THE PEOPLE ON THE LISTS ARE OLD WHITE MEN (STILL)

BUT NOT ON MY LIST OF POSSIBLES, THE WRITERS AFTER WWII WERE NOT AS DIVERSE AS THOSE WHO CAME AFTER THEM IMHO

ARE WE LOOKING AT A SPECIFIC TIME FRAME? EX: 1960-1980? 1980-NOW

jACK KEROUAC
TONI MORRISON
PHILIP ROTH
NORMAN MAILER
JOAN DIDION
JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN
PETE HAMILL
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
RICHARD PRICE
TOM WOOLF
MAYA ANGELOU
DENNIS LEHANE
LANGSTON HUGHES
JAMES THURBER
JAMES BALDWIN
WILLIAM STYRON
CARSON McCULLERS
HARPER LEE
JAMES DICKEY
RICHARD WRIGHT

JUST BECAUSE HE IS A PHENOMONEN AND IF NOT JUDGED ON THE QUALITY OF HIS WRITING I'D SAY STEPHEN KING WILL BE REMEMBERED IN THE WAY WRITERS LIKE POE ARE REMEMBERED.

Stewart said:

Oh, we've not forgotten Updike. He's one of the old crowd.

Irving? I don't know. I've only read A Prayer For Owen Meany and about sixty pages of The Cider House Rules and he struck me more as a story teller in the big Dickensian way (albeit with excruciatingly longer chapters) rather than someone who could move up with the big hitters.

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Both are quite boring, I agree. Try Setting Free the Bears or The Water-Method Man. Irving was happily non-Dickensian in his earlier days, much less mainstream. Does that make him one of the Bit American Writers?

But then, what makes any of those others on the list candidates? Maybe old age IS a requirement.

I also had a probleme with Irving when i reach A widow for a years but i Loved Son of the circus.Irving used to be a life saver because you could find his books everywhere(airport,train station,small town..)and he was a quality alternative to the stuff you usualy find there.
I think beer good sum up the situation,also i would not hesitate to add Palahniuk and Auster,but certanly not Ellis who with Lunar Park show his obvouis limitation,as a writer with an attitude.His best book for me is Informer.
TC boyles wrote some good short stories,and can sometime produce some decent work.
But even 5 or 10 years ago who would have though of Mac Carthy.

The Water Method Man is a good book. Check out Irving's Wikipedia entry and especially the chart towards the bottom.

John Irving - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia