New American Story

These 17 stories dig deep into America today. Each one — whether about a Navajo Indian, queer hustler or used-car salesman — is an exact refraction of the beliefs, conventions and behaviour patterns of a people in a state of change. This change is reflected in the writers' styles. A freedom and individuality new to American writing informs them all — from the explosive 'wordscapes' of Kerouac and Burroughs to the taut power of Robert Creeley and Hubert Selby Jr. Some of the stories are concerned with a middle class trapped in a world of advertising and TV; some, the victims of race, perversion and poverty. Some eschew plot to exploit myth, symbol and language; many have messages that are hard to take...