The New American Writing: Essays on American Literature Since 1970 ed. by Graham Clarke

Abstract

164 Western American Literature seem to exhibit more promise than merit, Hanson’s study is certainly a signifi­ cant addition to the innovative critical perspective that Allen has brought to the appreciation of western American literature. That the perspective is now somewhat overburdened by jargon does not diminish the very rich possibilities it suggests. Finally, the most polished of these short studies is Lyman B. Hagen’s Dee Brown. Very evenly paced, succinctly integrating illustrative specifics and more general estimates, it covers all aspects of Brown’s career with equal insight. It manages to convey Brown’s important contributions as a novelist and historian without straining to overstate his stature. It should do much to promote further critical attention to Brown’s work—though other critics will be hard-pressed to match the seamless transitions that characterize Hagen’s treatment. In every sense, this study might serve as a model for what can be accomplished in a seemingly restrictive space. MARTIN KICH Wright State University The New American Writing: Essays on American Literature Since 1970. Edited by Graham Clarke. (London and New York: Vision Press and St. Martin’s Press, 1990. 186 pages, no price given.) “The word ‘new’ seems endemic to American culture,” says Graham Clarke in his introduction to this collection of essays on “The New American Writing,” taken mostly from fellow professors at the University of Kent in Great Britain. Indeed, this particular post-1970 “newness,” which Clarke aptly identifies as the desire to locate oneself in a history that “increasingly seems to overwhelm and threaten,” is the rubric, and paradox, under which this collec­ tion is organized. Attempting to define what is “new” is always tricky business, especially when, as Clarke says, “New is . . . now”; but these essays manage this close proximity well, and are useful not only for their attention to these “new,” often ignored authors, but as a document to be considered in discussions on canon reformation. With specific chapters on E.L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, Raymond Carver, and Gordon Lish, and collective chapters on ethnic fiction and American crime fiction, this collection attempts to place itself at the nexus of popular culture and literature. In doing so in such an “academic” format, The New American Writing asks us to consider our criteria for what we call “literature” and, by extension, to consider the process through which we select new authors into the literary canon. Although the American West as genre is not addressed in this collection, Clarke’s fine essay on Raymond Carver and A. Robert Lee’s chapter on the “Ethnic Renaissance,” which discusses Louise Erdrich and Rudolfo Anaya, may be ofparticular interesthere. Reviews 165 I suppose that in any collection, one could always quibble over those figures not included, and Clarke does concede that this 186 page volume is not meant to be fully representative. However, with his stated emphasis on history and historical representation, the late Donald Barthelme is,perhaps, this collec­ tion’s most conspicuously absent figure. Although this book works admirably within the limitations of length, much more could have been accomplished with the addition of a few more chapters. CHRISTOPHER COATES University of Florida Home to Stay: Asian American Women’s Fiction. Edited by Sylvia Watanabe and Carol Bruchac. (Greenfield Center: The Greenfield Review Press, 1990. 321 pages, $12.95.) Watanabe explains that the writers in this anthology are American women of Asian descent or “non-Asian women who have experienced close contact with Asian cultures.” The work includes such celebrated writers as Maxine Hong Kingston, Bharati Mukherjee, and Amy Tan. Also included are many new writers—some of them in their early 20s—whose works here have not been published before. Of these, Elizabeth Gordon in “On the Other Side of the War: A Story” writes with wry understatement about anAmerican-Vietnamese family made legitimate in West Virginia. The stories are prefaced by brief autobiographical sketches of their authors which are as compelling as the fiction. Gish Jen writes humorously of her cherished nickname which her mother rejects. Sussy Chako writes that she was “born and raised in Hong Kong by immigrant parents who were Indone­ sian citizens of Chinese descent.” Marnie Mueller, a...