Novel Competition describes the literary and institutional struggle to make American novels matter between 1965 and 1999. As corporations took over the book business, Hollywood movies, popular music, and other forms of mass-produced culture competed with novels as never before for a form of prestige that had mostly been attached to novels in previous decades. In the context of this competition, developments like the emergence of Rolling Stone magazine, regional publishers, Black studies programs, and 鈥淣ew Hollywood鈥 became key events in the life of the American novel. Novels by Truman Capote, Ann Beattie, Toni Cade Bambara, Cynthia Ozick, and Larry McMurtry鈥攁mong many others鈥攁re recast as prescient reports on, and formal responses to, a world suddenly less hospitable to old claims about the novel鈥檚 value. This book brings to light the story of the novel鈥檚 perceived decline and the surprising ways American fiction transformed in its wake.
鈥Novel Competition is a beautifully written institutional history of the literary novel in the United States from 1965 to 1999. Placing the novel in a larger cultural field鈥攊n competition with journalism, popular music, and films for cultural prestige鈥擝rier illuminates not only novels, but their readers, critics, editors, publishers, and booksellers.鈥濃擡rin A. Smith, University of Texas at Dallas
鈥Novel Competition confronts a fascinating and important subject: an examination of how the novel came to matter differently over the last third of the twentieth century. This decline is something that scholars of the novel have bemoaned for some time, and Brier offers a useful approach to making sense of it without resorting to well-trod and over-simplified answers. It is an engaging and important book.鈥濃擡mily Johansen, author, Beyond Safety: Risk, Cosmopolitanism, and the Neoliberal Contemporary Life
鈥淎s a longtime Evan Brier fan, I鈥檝e been eagerly waiting this book, his account of the American novel鈥檚 response to its declining fortunes. Brier dazzles with a virtuosic reading of Truman Capote鈥檚 In Cold Blood that takes us through the culture of The New Yorker, the Kansas literati, and the first stirrings of publishing鈥檚 conglomeration. He delivers an extraordinary investigation into Toni Morrison鈥檚 career as an editor鈥攃ulminating in Toni Cade Bambara鈥檚 The Salt Eaters鈥攁nd her publication of The Black Book. We follow Philip Roth to Eastern Europe and Cynthia Ozick鈥檚 and Saul Bellow鈥檚 characters into diaspora. Minimalism, rock and roll, New Hollywood, Rushdie鈥檚 fatwa, the American West鈥攁n astounding account of Larry McMurtry鈥檚 career鈥攖he memoir boom. Brier touches it all. Brier quietly transcends the limitations of dominant norms in the practices of literary history and the sociology of literature to give us an nth-dimensional view of American literature since 1965: how the novel became residual. He tells us what it means to believe鈥攐r disbelieve鈥攊n the power of fiction. It鈥檚 no less than thrilling.鈥濃擠an Sinykin, author, Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature
"Novel Competition . . . distinguishes itself through the depth of its research and the resulting complexity and nuance that it brings to accounts of late twentieth-century US literary history. Brier has combed authors鈥 and publishers鈥 archives as well as regional literary magazines, small town newspapers, and publishing trade periodicals to offer subtle and richly detailed examinations of the novel鈥檚 shifting position in the US cultural economy. Perhaps his book鈥檚 most striking finding is just how sustained, widespread, and impassioned discussions of fiction鈥檚 institutional structures have been among authors, editors, agents, book reviewers, and other professionals in the post-45 US literary field. In this light, the recent reorientation toward institutions among Americanist scholars appears long overdue.鈥濃American Literary History Review
"Novel Competition is no 鈥榙eath of the novel鈥 diatribe. In fact, Brier gives short shrift to the doom-and-gloomers; American authors, in his view, remain as talented as ever. . . . Although the literary novel remains the touchstone for what 鈥榚lite鈥 cultural status might mean, its former midcentury monopoly on prestige, Brier claims, has been shattered. . . . This 鈥榥ovel competition鈥 is one prong of his argument. His second prong involves what we might now call literary sociology: the material processes by which books are acquired, edited, published, distributed, sold, and reviewed. . . . This two-pronged approach helps distinguish Novel Competition from other important books tackling the notion of literary reputation . . . Brier鈥檚 thesis is immensely useful, mainly because it helps explain so many things beyond the literary mainstream.鈥濃擠ennis Wilson Wise, Los Angeles Review of Books
