The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology by Paula Geyh, Fred G. Leebron and Andrew Levy
John O'Brien

Paula Geyh, Fred G. Leebron, and Andrew Levy, eds. Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology. Norton, 1998. 672 pp. $24.95.

Norton has once again worked its genius. Whatever the hell the term postmodern might mean (to Norton, it apparently means anything after modern), it would seem to include John Hawkes and Gilbert Sorrentino, the latter having spent a career collecting nasty reviews for being a postmodernist. Hawkes and Sorrentino are not here represented, though many of the usual suspects are: Barth, Coover, Pynchon, Barthelme (Donald, that is), and Gass. But then almost anyone else is likely to pop up as well: Audre Lorde, Tim O’Brien, Bobbie Ann Mason, Jayne Anne Phillips, Douglas Coupland, on and on. That all of these should appear between the covers of one anthology is a postmodern gesture in and of itself. Perhaps Norton intended this book as an elaborate postmodern joke! [John O’Brien]