This collection, [Writers and Their Craft,] material originally contained in a two-volume issue of Michigan Quarterly Review, is an olio of essays, interviews, memoirs, short statements, stories, and even cartoons that the editors hoped would provide “a kind of road map through [American fiction] of the 1990s, a work whose polyphonic structure represents its subject with high fidelity.” What they have produced is entertaining and frequently illuminating; but it fails to function as a road map. Anyone attempting to follow it for guidance would end up lost in a tangle of conflicting routes. The effect is a version of the logical conundrum in which a traveler at a fork in a road asks directions of a man who may belong to one of two tribes—one whose members always lie or one whose members always tell the truth. Thus, some of the 100 or so contributors consider minimalism a breakthrough, and others consider it an abomination; some despair over the vacuousness of today's writing, and others find an abundance of riches.

Equivalents of much of the material in the book—the stories and essays and interviews—could be found in many magazines, literary or otherwise. Unique is a section of almost 200 pages called “A Symposium on Contemporary American Fiction” in which 90 writers arranged alphabetically from Linsey Abrams to Jose Yglesias respond to a general question: “Granted that contemporary American fiction is a variety of things, which kind of recent writing interests you especially, and, in your opinion, is most deserving of more attention and more readers?” Some of the reactions deal specifically with those questions; others use them as an excuse to vent whatever is on the responder's mind. Some are earnest and thoughtful, others pithy or disingenuous.

However, the overall impression produced is one of déjà vu, opinions that are reruns of statements made about American fiction, say, 25 years ago. Of course, some of the vocabulary of the debate is new—postmodernism, minimalism, multiculturalism—but the basic attitudes fall into several familiar categories: e.g., nothing worthwhile is being written today, with the rare exception of work by x, y, and z; the workshops are to blame by turning out skillful writers with nothing to say; we are blessed by all the excellent work of our time; innovation is meaningless because what really matters is compelling fiction that probes the human soul; the old forms are played out; we must return to Joyce, Chekhov, Hemingway, Flannery O'Connor; publishers care only about profit; the important new writers come from Latin America or Eastern Europe or multicultural backgrounds; my own writing hasn't gotten the recognition it deserves.

Beyond the variety of opinions the symposium assemblage is useful for gathering, with photographs, the 90 current writers who responded and for offering in aggregate an extensive compilation of books and writers they recommend as the best of current fiction.

In the large majority of stories and essays they chose for the book, the editors come down on the side of tradition—familiar narrative techniques and approaches that assume fiction should illuminate the way we live now.