The Overstory by Richard Powers REVIEW 

Thank you so much Linda!

I am really surprised by how torn people are with Overstory; some people, like you, were not 100% convinced, and some seemed to really dislike it. I was convinced this would be a huge crowd pleaser!!

"contemporary writing isn't worth it" That's a huge misstep.

Contemporary American writing doesn’t have the same steam it once had. In the long shadow of America’s publishing industry (and the economic/political forces which control it), contemporary writers are struggling to put out literature on par with previous generations. And whenever I’m keen to point this out to people, they usually rattle off a list of writers who are pretty old, much past their prime, and who fall into the “Contemporary Writing” category on a technicality. I mean, come on: Cormac McCarthy? Thomas Pynchon? Stephen King? Or any of the Gen X writers rapidly approaching agedness? A lot of these go-to living American writers are done and done. After them, you get what we have now - an endless wave of safe, progressivist writers, often from fashionably agreeable social backgrounds. Like, seriously? - a massive “save the trees” book winning a national award? Really groundbreaking stuff here, guys. I know this is a terrible metric to go by, but look at the Nobel Prize for Literature. An American prose fiction writer hasn’t won the award since 1993! I hate to say it, but, by and large, Contemporary American fiction isn’t worth anyone’s time. The best of the best writing is coming from other parts of the world, while the American publishing industry clogs its own machinery with the dregs of a once great writing culture.

@@chrise4164 ok, I'll bite. R any of the younge post 2000 writes worth spending one's reading time?