Chabon mentions Pynchon

[Bekah]

On Oct 25, 2012, at 10:02 PM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

> alice wellintown wrote:
>> re-read and study the first chapter.
> ok
> 
>> And, looking into a handful of the post-Pynchon novels, or whatever we
>> call the generation that Chabon, Moody, Franzen, Whitehead, Wallace,
>> T.C. Boyle (?), why all males?
> 
> because they have one x & one y apiece? because the Equal Rights
> Amendment got torpedoed and the females are on strike?


Because US publishers like women to write the far more lucrative  "women's books"   as does Jodi Picault,  and maybe the better women writers,  Barbara Kingsolver,  Anne Tyler,   Marilynne Robinson etc.   Women authors are fully accepted in the nonfiction and crime genres.   There are a few who can slip by into praiseworthy literary fiction (whatever that means) - Cynthia Ozick is one.   Karen Yamashita,  (! -  I, Hotel )  Toni Morrison (fading),  Gish Jen (newer) are some others - Julie Otsuka maybe.   

 Zadie Smith is still more British than American,  and the very British Hilary Mantel is excellent now with the Cromwell stories.  Rowling's new one - Casual Vacancy was … interesting but … she's no Zadie Smith by a long shot. 

Shirley Hazzard is from Australia now in the US - I doubt she has another book in her.  Alice Munro (Canada) is also aging now - as is Ozick.  

Bekah