The New Fiction: Interviews with Innovative American Writers

by Joe David Bellamy

Twelve prominent writers comment on themselves, the art and practice of writing, and the status of fiction in present-day America

Genres: Writing, Criticism, Nonfiction

210 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Joe David Bellamy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended Duke University, Antioch College, and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Bellamy won the Editors' Book Award for his novel Suzi Sinzinnati, and his collection of short fiction, Atomic Love, was an AWP Award Series Selection. He is also author or editor of fifteen other books, including Kindred Spirits, New World Extra, Literary Luxuries, The New Fiction, Superfiction, American Poetry Observed, Island in the Sky, and two collections of poetry. His new novel, Green Freedom, is forthcoming in 2011 from Narrative Library.

Bellamy was the founding editor and publisher of Fiction International magazine and press. A former president of both the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines (CCLM), he served as Director of the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts in the early 90s. He has been a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) since 1980 and served as a member of the NBCC Board of Directors from 2001 to 2004.

His articles, fiction, poetry, and reviews have been published in: The Atlantic, The Nation, Harper's, Paris Review, Narrative, The New York Times Book Review, Ploughshares, Partisan Review, Story, North American Review, The Washington Post Book World, and some seventy others.

He has taught at several colleges and universities, including the University of Iowa, Virginia Wesleyan College, St. Lawrence University, and George Mason University and was Whichard Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at East Carolina University. His literary papers are archived at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. "

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Sometimes my reading habits feel like I’ve placed myself inside of a Borges story. As Borges writes about a giant encyclopedia about an imaginary world instead of writing the encyclopedia itself or telling stories taking place in that world, I like to read books about books I love and interviews with authors I admire just about as much as I like to read their words themselves in the very books they’ve written. So it goes....

New fiction from circa 40 years in the past. The usual suspects of my reading, sort of. Oh, and of those usual suspects, the ones I’ve been stalking these past few years, those interviews were new material to me.


The Interviewees

John Barth
**Joyce Carol Oates
William H. Gass
Donald Barthelme
*Ronald Sukenick
*Tom Wolfe
John Hawkes
**Susan Sontag
*Ishmael Reed
**Jerzy Kosinski
*John Gardner
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Those hanging around but failed to get themselves interviewed

Robert Coover
Thomas Pynchon
**J. P. Donleavy
**Rudolph Wurlitzer
**Leonard Michaels
**Richard Brautigan
William Burroughs
Stanley Elkin
**Evan Connell, Jr.
**Charles Simmons
*Ken Kesey
**James Purdy
**George Chambers
**Bernard Kaplan
**W. S. Merwin
**Robert Boles
Raymond Federman
Steve Katz
Gilbert Sorrentino
**LeRoi Jones
**Charles Newman
*John Cheever
**Harry Crews
Joseph Heller
**Clarence Major
**George P. Elliot
**Charles Wright
**Joy Williams
**William Hjorstberg
**Vance Borjaily
**Reynolds Price
**Wright Morris
John Updike

* = I’ve not read their work yet.
** = I’ve not read their work yet and I’m taking rec’s as to which to read. Else I’ve already got one lined up ; or I’ve got no present interest. And since I don’t know half these people, maybe with your rec you’d include a Why? along with it.


The Characteristic Questions

What characterizes the new fiction?
What fictional modes seem most played out or moribund?
Which seem most compelling as opportunities for continuing imaginative exploration?
What are the nature, function, and possibilities of “character” in fiction at the present moment?
What influences from other art forms or rom electric media seem significant, and how are these expressed?
What is and what should fiction be about?
What is fiction good for; that is, what is the purpose of art?
What is the relationship between art and reality?
Is there a shared reality which it is the writer’s business to imitate, to translate, to interpret, or to “create”?
[from the Preface}

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whether you like them or not, whether you agree with them or not, if you're interested in act of writing, it is generally interesting getting inside the heads of writers. I'd say this collection of writers is particularly interesting - Barth, Oates, Gass, Barthelme, Sukenick, Wolfe, Hawkes, Sontag, Reed, Kosinski, Gardner, Vonnegut Jr. I get the impression that even the worst interviewer would evoke compelling responses from most of these people. A window into the literary concerns of the early '70s is also insightful.

[Jen]

Some good interviews in here.