The New Midwest

by Mark Athitakis

Overview

In the public imagination, Midwestern literature has not evolved far beyond heartland laborers and hardscrabble immigrants of a century past. But as the region has changed, so, in many ways, has its fiction. In this book, the author explores how shifts in work, class, place, race, and culture has been reflected or ignored by novelists and short story writers. From Marilynne Robinson to Leon Forrest, Toni Morrison to Aleksandar Hemon, Bonnie Jo Campbell to Stewart O'Nan this book is a call to rethink the way we conceive Midwestern fiction, and one that is sure to prompt some new must-have additions to every reading list.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780997774283
Publisher:	Belt Publishing
Publication date:	02/06/2017
Pages:	104
Product dimensions:	4.80(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Mark Athitakis serves on the board of the National Book Critics Circle and writes the Reading the Midwest column for Belt Magazine. He has been published in Barnes and Noble Review, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, and many other outlets. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Editorial Reviews

A good work of fiction can help you see the world differently. A good work of criticism can help you see a good book differently, which, in turn, alters the world again ... Using the lens of novels and short stories published over the past 30 or so years, Athitakis seeks to illuminate the ways we still lean on literary mythology of the Midwest when it comes to defining the region."  — Chicago Tribune


"Readers may cavil with Athitakis’ choices, but they can’t question his research, erudition, and clarity of expression."  — Kirkus Reviews


"[In The New Midwest] Athitakis’ selections are sharp, and his close-readings succinct, and his wrangling of these many works and many subjects into conversation is as necessary as it is daunting ... At its best, the book is an illustrative and auxiliary text to anyone seeking a better comprehension of the Midwest, its history, the ongoing cultural discourses surrounding it and, of course, the discourse surrounding the stories the region tells and the stories we tell about it."  — The New Territory


"The New Midwest is a crisp, engaging tip sheet and guide for further reading."  — Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal


"In The New Midwest, [Athitakis] attempts to illustrate the variations within the region’s literature in just under 100 pages. He delves into how writers have yet to really interrogate the region’s modern-day relationship with issues surrounding social class, place, and race."  — Lit Hub


"Athitakis parses how the best Midwestern fiction punctures the region’s superficially comforting image and re-examines its past to uncover a less idyllic, more troubled history."  — Huffington Post


"[The New Midwest] rightly praises the Midwestern novels of Marilynne Robinson, Jeffrey Eugenides, Toni Morrison and Jonathan Franzen, but also points out works of comparable merit that warrant rediscovery."  — Washington Post

From the Publisher

2016-12-06
A collection of literary criticism that demonstrates how the Midwest of Willa Cather and Sinclair Lewis has been significantly altered in the works of novelists who have explored the region in recent decades. Athitakis, a freelance critic who has published in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, Chicago Sun-Times, and other venues, debuts with a journey through the Midwest (whose boundaries are fluid) and through some key works by writers he thinks are most effectively using the region in their fiction. Arranged thematically, the chapters deal with such subjects as the changes in the region's legendary work ethic, immigration, religion, and fiction, eccentricity and oddness, the bildungsroman, and so on. In each section, the author identifies (in boldface) those writers he wishes to examine and/or recommend. Many of the names are familiar to readers of serious contemporary fiction—e.g., Marilynne Robinson, David Foster Wallace, Toni Morrison, Jonathan Franzen—but some names, especially those in the final chapter (writers on whom he has not focused earlier), will surprise. Others will be familiar principally to the cognoscenti: Stuart Dybek and Angela Flournoy are just a few of them. Among the most impressive aspects of Athitakis' work is his comprehensive knowledge of the writers of the region, both former and current. He ably discusses not only their well-known works, but also their early and/or minor works. Throughout, he offers perceptive observations about each writer: Marilynne Robinson's works are "more irreverent about religion than they let on," and Gillian Flynn has identified "a secretly menacing quality to the Midwest that often goes unspoken." Unafraid of declaration, Athitakis writes that Middlesex is Jeffrey Eugenides' "greatest achievement," and he boldly delivers a possible candidate for The Great American Novel: Leon Forrest's massive Divine Days (1992). Readers may cavil with Athitakis' choices, but they can't question his research, erudition, and clarity of expression.

Kirkus Reviews