I would also add that substack, in ways oddly more than peak twitter, functions in the same way peak internet did for music. There is pitchfork aspect to the fiction community with substack. There is an intrinsic credentialism within substack for those who's opinions you trust, that allows recommendations and plaudits to be taken more seriously here. The best contemporary fiction I have read is not from bookstore recommendations but from substack recommendations such as this one. This also may be a metacritique of the politics of staff recommendations at bookstores, but that is a whole other argument.
Agree with other comments here that this piece was, oddly motivational! Also, Ross - to speak to the last paragraph, you're winning the current battle with self.. Glass Century is for sure one of the best things i've read this year (I was the guy on Bluesky who let you know i'd 'saved' the book for when I was on a plane to NYC for max impact). Can't wait to see (read) whatever it is you decided to grace us with next. I go to NYC every August so please keep the tips (Sweetychat etc.) coming on where to find readings : )
I LOVE _The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P_ for all the reasons discussed here: "the pacing, the pitch, and attention to detail." It's a novel of manners in the tradition of Austen and Wharton applied to Williamsburg and Gowanas. So I'm thrilled to see this novel recognized here, and agree that it's "one of the great American novels of the 2010." BUT--is this judgment widely shared among other Gex X readers? My sense is that this book is far less well known than it should be. (Sidebar: Waldman's book is vastly superior to Gessen's own treatment of the same topic, _All the Sad Young Literary Men_)
I don't think so. I'm Waldman's age, and my mostly Gen X/elder millennial book club read it when it came out. We liked it ok, but were certainly not blown away, as I recall.
Fascinating shift here from the personal/rumantive re-read into a comment on the new literary scene. For some reason I latched onto your comment about The New Yorker, and how getting a short story in its pages meant more even a decade ago than it does today -- and it made me wonder if maybe the virality of that "Cat Person" story (strange to think that this, too, is nearly a decade behind us) had some lasting effect on the NYer's fiction status...
In a post-literate world, skimming a fragment and spinning it into a theory of “prestige” passes for cultural commentary. But the publicist’s assistant, waiting for you to deliver on that promise to hype your own novel on Substack, remains unmoved
What has clearly been lost is the ability to write an essay. Instead we get reflections upon having read a chunk of something. If Ross’s pot literate work here is an example of the new prestige we are all in trouble
Ross, thanks for this excellent essay. There is a lot to think about here. I look back at two and a half decades of Shannon Ravenel's Best of the South short fiction anthologies and they are filled with the names of luminary writers who published in top journals over the years. We know many of those authors by their books, but journals were always there in the background, alive with new fiction, and apparently with more actual arms length readers than today. You seem to be saying that the scene is simply different now. Am I hearing you say that journals don't sit at the center anymore? That they can't deliver eyeballs on the page. The magazines paid the great writers. But...journals for the most part never paid much of anything and were simply the first ladder rung on the climb to book publication where there was at least some hope of selling something, and having work read more widely.
So Substack is it now, huh? What is the corollary then?
Let me take a stab at one: For most writers content is worthless; having it read is the prize.
In my heart of hearts I have internalized this truth. For example, I just wrote 6 short, sequential essays in opposition to short term rentals like the ones facilitated by Airbnb. My wife said "you're wasting the chance of really publishing them somewhere real by squandering them on our neighborhood Facebook page." I said, "no, you're wrong, it is the one place where someone might actually read them with genuine interest."
Ross, I guess what I'm coming around to concluding is this: after essaying your topic myself here in so few bumbling words, I agree with you.
The internet has changed so much, including literature. The question is: does giving equal space for the amateur and the professional to judge open the way to measure the “real quality” of an author more than before? Perhaps the influence of the expert class in past eras was overstated; after all, we don’t remember any “official” reviews of Shakespeare’s plays in his own time, and yet he endures.
There’s a certain pleasure in seeing the laurels of prestige media matter less, even as it’s clearly tied to the diminished place of literature in society as a whole, because it's opened doors for outsiders. At the same time, one of the more interesting developments of the 2020s literary scene has been a turn toward an underdog spirit of camaraderie rather than peer rivalry, which is what draws me to Substack. Of course, there will always be those who rise to the head of the class, but when someone does manage a measure of mainstream success, it feels like a win for everyone.
What has clearly been lost is the ability to write an essay. Instead we get reflections upon having read a chunk of something. If Ross’s pot literate work here is an example of the new prestige we are all in trouble
This was oddly motivational.
I would also add that substack, in ways oddly more than peak twitter, functions in the same way peak internet did for music. There is pitchfork aspect to the fiction community with substack. There is an intrinsic credentialism within substack for those who's opinions you trust, that allows recommendations and plaudits to be taken more seriously here. The best contemporary fiction I have read is not from bookstore recommendations but from substack recommendations such as this one. This also may be a metacritique of the politics of staff recommendations at bookstores, but that is a whole other argument.
Agree with other comments here that this piece was, oddly motivational! Also, Ross - to speak to the last paragraph, you're winning the current battle with self.. Glass Century is for sure one of the best things i've read this year (I was the guy on Bluesky who let you know i'd 'saved' the book for when I was on a plane to NYC for max impact). Can't wait to see (read) whatever it is you decided to grace us with next. I go to NYC every August so please keep the tips (Sweetychat etc.) coming on where to find readings : )
I LOVE _The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P_ for all the reasons discussed here: "the pacing, the pitch, and attention to detail." It's a novel of manners in the tradition of Austen and Wharton applied to Williamsburg and Gowanas. So I'm thrilled to see this novel recognized here, and agree that it's "one of the great American novels of the 2010." BUT--is this judgment widely shared among other Gex X readers? My sense is that this book is far less well known than it should be. (Sidebar: Waldman's book is vastly superior to Gessen's own treatment of the same topic, _All the Sad Young Literary Men_)
I don't think so. I'm Waldman's age, and my mostly Gen X/elder millennial book club read it when it came out. We liked it ok, but were certainly not blown away, as I recall.
Fascinating shift here from the personal/rumantive re-read into a comment on the new literary scene. For some reason I latched onto your comment about The New Yorker, and how getting a short story in its pages meant more even a decade ago than it does today -- and it made me wonder if maybe the virality of that "Cat Person" story (strange to think that this, too, is nearly a decade behind us) had some lasting effect on the NYer's fiction status...
What is a "personal/rumantive re-read"?
Assessing it from a personal lens. Not critiquing it so much as thinking/riffing about the personal effect. More re-considering than reviewing.
Ross Barkan with good description of what seems to be happening around Substack, why it seems important. A generous take.
Really nicely observed and helpful for those of us who weren’t paying close attention to the NYC literary scenes of the past 20 years.
In a post-literate world, skimming a fragment and spinning it into a theory of “prestige” passes for cultural commentary. But the publicist’s assistant, waiting for you to deliver on that promise to hype your own novel on Substack, remains unmoved
What has clearly been lost is the ability to write an essay. Instead we get reflections upon having read a chunk of something. If Ross’s pot literate work here is an example of the new prestige we are all in trouble
What is "pot literate"? Does it apply to eating or smoking weed?
PR disguised as cultural critique. The insularity is suffocating. A few hundred or even thousand readers is evidence of what exactly?
Substack where the 'I' gender generation are always in the first person
& think their critical thinking is so individually important
that they are the subject not us the reader.
Ross, thanks for this excellent essay. There is a lot to think about here. I look back at two and a half decades of Shannon Ravenel's Best of the South short fiction anthologies and they are filled with the names of luminary writers who published in top journals over the years. We know many of those authors by their books, but journals were always there in the background, alive with new fiction, and apparently with more actual arms length readers than today. You seem to be saying that the scene is simply different now. Am I hearing you say that journals don't sit at the center anymore? That they can't deliver eyeballs on the page. The magazines paid the great writers. But...journals for the most part never paid much of anything and were simply the first ladder rung on the climb to book publication where there was at least some hope of selling something, and having work read more widely.
So Substack is it now, huh? What is the corollary then?
Let me take a stab at one: For most writers content is worthless; having it read is the prize.
In my heart of hearts I have internalized this truth. For example, I just wrote 6 short, sequential essays in opposition to short term rentals like the ones facilitated by Airbnb. My wife said "you're wasting the chance of really publishing them somewhere real by squandering them on our neighborhood Facebook page." I said, "no, you're wrong, it is the one place where someone might actually read them with genuine interest."
Ross, I guess what I'm coming around to concluding is this: after essaying your topic myself here in so few bumbling words, I agree with you.
Publishing has certainly changed.
The internet has changed so much, including literature. The question is: does giving equal space for the amateur and the professional to judge open the way to measure the “real quality” of an author more than before? Perhaps the influence of the expert class in past eras was overstated; after all, we don’t remember any “official” reviews of Shakespeare’s plays in his own time, and yet he endures.
There’s a certain pleasure in seeing the laurels of prestige media matter less, even as it’s clearly tied to the diminished place of literature in society as a whole, because it's opened doors for outsiders. At the same time, one of the more interesting developments of the 2020s literary scene has been a turn toward an underdog spirit of camaraderie rather than peer rivalry, which is what draws me to Substack. Of course, there will always be those who rise to the head of the class, but when someone does manage a measure of mainstream success, it feels like a win for everyone.
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P is an excellent choice. I can't think of a novel written since 2010, or perhaps earlier, that's even remotely as good.
What has clearly been lost is the ability to write an essay. Instead we get reflections upon having read a chunk of something. If Ross’s pot literate work here is an example of the new prestige we are all in trouble