Gerald Howard in the New York Times:
I remember the vogue in the ’60s and ’70s for critical essays predicting the imminent “death of the novel.” In Wilfrid Sheed’s mordant portrait of the protagonist of “The Minor Novelist,” he writes, “He tries to keep away from Sunday supplements which discuss the death of the novel. He has a theory that it is bad luck to read more than three articles on this subject a week.” Legions of M.F.A. grads can relate.
And yet, that wounded beast, the literary novel, keeps on being written, being published, and, when the fickle gods smile upon it, even bought and read, as the publishers of Colson Whitehead, Sally Rooney and Percival Everett, to name just three large talents, can attest. If literary fiction is a corpse, it’s a wonderfully animated one.
What I am about to say on this matter may seem perverse, but I think a look back at the instances where great works of literature almost disappeared upon publication or came close to not being published can offer a useful perspective, and even a modicum of hope, that the game is far from over.
More here.
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