Some Thoughts on Dirty Realism
Maybe I have my own rather unreasonably venomous feelings about dirty realism (or what Mark McGurl calls "lower middle class modernism"), or maybe the genre truly has tapped itself out, like the veins in a junkie's arm. Or maybe it's just a question of too many imitators—I mean, I liked Raymond Carver when I was seventeen too. Haven't read him since, and I'm not sure to what degree I would still like him. But . . .
So I'm not the only one to find Raymond Carver a little mediocre.
