Annotated Bibliography 357
John W. Aldridge, Talents and Technicians: Literary Chic and the New Assembly-
Line Fiction (New York: Scribners, 1992).
Examination of contemporary literary fiction by writers who received critical
attention and praise in the 1980s and early 1990s, such as Ann Beattie, T. C.
Boyle, Raymond Carver, Bret Easton Ellis, Louise Erdrich, and Jay McInerney.
Aldridge points out “flaws” in their work that he ascribes to cultural trends.
Houston A. Baker, ed., Three American Literatures: Essays in Chicano, Native
American, and Asian-American Literature for Teachers of American Literature
(New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1982).
Eight essays offering broad overviews of minority literary traditions and basic
interpretations of important works.
Christopher W. E. Bigsby, Contemporary American Playwrights (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1999).
Accessible survey of the careers and discussions of the plays of John Guare, Tina
Howe, Tony Kushner, Emily Mann, Richard Nelson, Marsha Norman, David
Rabe, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, and Lanford Wilson.
Charles Blackstone and Jill Talbot, eds., The Art of Friction: Where [Non]Fictions
Come Together (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008).
Innovative anthology that provides nineteen works—short stories, essays, and
hybrids of the two—along with a commentary by each author on his or her
own work. The anthology attempts to “survey the borderlands where fiction
and nonfiction intersect, commingle, and challenge genre lines.” Writers repre-
sented include Mary Clearman Blew, Junot Díaz, Jonathan Safran Foer, Wendy
McClure, Cris Mazza, Ronald Sukenick, and Terry Tempest Williams.
Malcolm Bradbury, The Modern American Novel, revised edition (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992).
Presents the American novel in all its variety and diversity from the late nine-
teenth century to the late twentieth century. Chapter 9, “After the Post: American
Fiction from the 1970s to the 1990s,” is especially relevant to the concerns of this
volume of the Research Guide to American Literature.
Julie Brown, ed., Ethnicity and the American Short Story (New York: Garland,
1997).
Fourteen essays, many with a focus on contemporary fiction, covering a wide
range of authors of diverse cultural backgrounds—Chinese American, Native
American, African American, Chicano/Chicana, Japanese American, Hawaiian,
Indo-American, Arab American, and Jewish American—including Amy Tan,
Louise Erdrich, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros, Ramzi M. Salti,
and N. Scott Momaday.
Héctor Calderón and José David Saldívar, eds., Criticism in the Borderlands:
Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology (Durham, N.C.: Duke
University Press, 1991).
Essays on Chicano literary criticism treating four pertinent issues: debates about
the American literary canon and the situation of Chicano literary studies; repre-