Aurelie Sheehan\’s absorbing stories
Aurelie Sheehan’s absorbing stories have depth miles beneath their compelling surface. They radiate a wisdom, beauty and originality rare in contemporary fiction. Frederic Tuten
Contemporary Fiction
American Morons is the
American Morons is the work of an original. Like Hitchcock or Ramsey Campbell, the style is precise, alert, and well-mannered, inviting us to enter Hirshberg’s private world so that he may lock the door behind us. If there is anyone in contemporary fiction worth watching, it is Glen Hirshberg. Dennis Etchison
Amity Gaige has written
Amity Gaige has written a flawless book. It does not contain a single false note. Playful and inventive, SCHRODER movingly depicts the ways we confound our own hearts–how even with the best intentions, we fail to love those closest to us as well as we wish we could. Eric Schroder should take his place among … Read more
Most contemporary fiction sucks.
Most contemporary fiction sucks. It’s intellectually dishonest, often morally dishonest. It’s cheap and easy. It pretends to be deep but is really quite shallow. Dale Peck
Aimee Parkison offers a
Aimee Parkison offers a distinct new voice to contemporary fiction. Her seductive stories explore childhood as a realm of sorrows, and reveal the afflictions of adults who emerge from this private geography. Carol Anshaw
Ultimately, I want a
Ultimately, I want a peak experience in reading, and that is sometimes difficult to find in contemporary fiction. I’m not interested in books that are just clever and well executed; polish doesn’t impress me, and I don’t care about a merely capable sentence. Life is short; I want a confrontation with high art. I want … Read more
I think the anti-intellectualism
I think the anti-intellectualism of a lot of contemporary fiction is a kind of despairing of literature’s ability to be anything more than perfectly bound blog posts or transcribed sitcoms. Ben Lerner
Anyway I read more
Anyway I read more contemporary poetry than contemporary fiction so my mind goes first to a kind of crass “conceptualism” that repeats vanguard gestures of the past minus the politics and historical context. Ben Lerner
I write contemporary fiction,
I write contemporary fiction, and that is what my readers want to read. Alex Flinn
One of my favourite
One of my favourite contemporary fiction writers is a Texan, Ben Fountain. His extraordinary novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk, all takes place within the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys football game. No one has better summed up the American appetite for spectacle, the link between sports and politics, and the absolute madness of … Read more