For me as an author (plus reader), the short answer is yes.

To be well-read in your preferred fiction genre is an essential. Time might be the big hang up. There isn't enough of it to dip into the dead authors' books. Or there's enough time to hit just the classics. Crime fiction would include Chandler, Hammett, Macdonald, Cain, Thompson, and the list goes on.

I'm rereading Dorothy Uhnak's The Bait, the Edgar winner for the Best First Novel in 1969. I like it, obviously. She died in 2006. Yesterday I checked our library's catalog. All but one of her novels have been culled from the stacks. Poof. Gone. No more. I'm told culling happens when the books haven't been checked out in a while. Makes sense but it bugs me when the old books disappear like hers.

On the other hand, fiction written in 2011 is for 2011 readers. Authors don't rely on or need to know what came before them. Tradition isn't important or relevant. Try as I might, I just can't buy into that line of thinking.

Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles