Gorgons in the Pool : The Trouble with Contemporary "Literary" Prose

by B.R. Myers

Gorgons in the Pool is a spirited attack on the growing pretentiousness of the American literary novel. Through a lively examination of the styles of five critically acclaimed novelists - Don DeLillo, Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, Paul Auster and David Guterson - the author sets out to demonstrate that the decline in American cultural literacy has led not to a demand for more straightforward English, as might have been expected, but to the increasing popularity of affected, "writerly" writing. Gorgons in the Pool is thus a rallying cry for the millions of American book-lovers who, while open to everything from Stephen King to James Joyce, draw the line at the latest "hauntingly evocative tale of loss and redemption" - particularly if it bears a prize jury's seal of approval!

145 pages, Paperback

Published March 2, 2000

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