Is there a dominant trend in contemporary fiction?

 

 Giving labels to groups of writers is at best a harmless parlor game and at worst a gross generalization of the work of very individual talents, but here goes: there are four general trends in fiction that I see. One, the “traditional,, novelists, these are the masterful writers working at the top of their form writing “conventional” novels with beautiful prose and complexly rendered characters in imaginatively crafted narratives. Among my favorites: E. Annie Proulx, Richard Ford, Jane Smiley,Jim Harrison, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Stone. Two, multicultural fiction-self-explanatory, voices from the edges of mainstream white European culture-Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Francisco Goldman, Ben Okri, Junot Diaz. Three, transgressive or edge fiction -writers that shock with portrayals of extreme behavior, usually sex-Bret Easton Ellis, Will Self, A.M. Homes, William Vollmann (the short books), Darcey Steinke, Dennis Cooper. Four, hy…