Books of the Year 2011: fiction
In a year of fruitful reading Keith Miller has enjoyed cerebral
offerings from American authors, the mellowing of a French firebrand, and a
European novel written in English.
Whether or not we ought to dust off the crusting pipe, roll out the barrel and declare this a vintage year for fiction in English, I can report that it’s been a very happy and fruitful reading year for me. In 2011 American novelists continued their long march uptown: which meant fewer solemn, monumental inquisitions into the lives and loves of cretinous Appalachians and short-order cooks, and more arch excursions round the skulls of well-educated analysands in gentrified neighbourhoods with a decent university within reach, and a great coffee shop on the corner.