There is currently a vogue for the all-encompassing, minutiaecrunching, self-regarding, state- of-the-changed-nation American novel. All too many of these are prone to solidification and gigantism, careless of content and reader-fatigue, and prone too to excesses of all kinds, from intrusive self-belief to distracting writerly style. However, recently, two of these novels have arrived here to great and justified expectation. Both have avoided the pitfalls of the majority of this genre, and both have been among the most rewarding works of American fiction published here. The first was Richard Powers’ The Time of Our Singing; the second, just arrived, is Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude.

Readers familiar with Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn will understand that the bulk of his work is a continuous and engaging saga dedicated to that small part of the world which has nurtured him, and which he knows completely in all its dirty, striving, complicated and disappointing detail.

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