The Wall Street Journal on Monday (yes, I am that far behind) had a lengthy article on the slack in the economy. And while the article goes in depth on various components of the economy that have room to make up before inflation could ever begin to kick in, they of course get it (purposefully) wrong.
The begin the discussion on track:
The interplay between slack and inflation is at the heart of that decision [for the Fed to raise interest rates]. Slack is important to their equation because, in theory, it should suppress wages and keep inflation down.
You can sense the skepticism there, but it continues:
But if the Fed misreads the dimensions or significance of slack, it could unleash an unwelcome bout of rising prices.
Not wrong, but you're beginning to see their thesis. And then:
The risk of inflation is significant.
Alright, back down. There is a difference between long-term and short-term here. Sure, keeping rates low after the recovery begins kicking in (like the Fed did under a different Administration) could certainly lead to inflation. I'll agree that the timing is critical, but the risk right now is not significant.
Of course, it's not just a question of rates. The liquidity in the system, will need to be absorbed as well. And budget deficits don't help. But durable goods order shrunk last month, the ISM manufacturing index barely crossed 50 into positive territory, and jobs will continue to be a problem for some time. I don't think we're in much danger right now of rising prices.
The article then injects an interesting theory:
If businesses and workers expect more inflation, the theory goes, they start demanding wage and price increases and set off the inflation they fear.
So, I'm a manufacturer, let's say, who believes that the Fed is really mucking things up and inflation is right around the corner. And, though, I haven't seen an increase in raw material prices yet, I'm going to raise prices in a struggling economy to try and recapture some of the money I think I'm going to lose in the future.
Or, I'm a union rep negotiating a new contract, when job losses are happening all around me, and I'm going to demand wage increases for men and women who are grateful to have jobs because I think that the cost of living is going to rise, at some point.
Both things would be a mistake. And, yes, I could see how those things could help stir up inflation, but the likelihood of anyone taking those risks when recovery is still uncertain is pretty low.
Though the article throws in plenty of numbers and some good quotes on the extent of slack in the economy, the purpose of the article is clearly to gin up inflation fears. Maybe it's just a supply-side issue, and the people overly concerned about inflation are just ignoring the demand side of things that becomes increasingly critical when things turn bad. Waiting too long to raise interest rates is dangerous, but raising interest rates will not lead us to recovery.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Fed Needs to Look to the Future
The FOMC statement released yesterday made it clear that, despite improvements in the economy, the Fed is not interested in raising rates or reabsorbing any of the liquidity out there. In fact, they "will continue to employ a wide range of tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability."
I don't expect a change right now. Raising rates now or trying to get the Fed's balance sheet back to normal anytime soon would shock the system. Now is not the time. But we don't really read the Fed statement to read the committee's take on the current economic stituation. We are looking for some hints to the future. Apparently, the Fed is not looking far enough into the future to even hint in changes in policy. Alright, they "will gradually slow the pace of these purchases [mortgage-backed securities] in order to promote a smooth transition in markets," but this doesn't provide much guidance.
The main concern over rates is the impact on mortgage rates, and thus home purchases. If the Fed raises the target range for the federal funds rate from its current 0.0%-0.25%, the arguement goes, then mortgage rates go up and less people will buy homes. This is true, but not necessarily a bad thing. Many blame the whole housing bubble on Greenspan keeping rates low for so long, letting many people who shouldn't own homes get into them cheaply. Higher mortgage rates could slow recovery, but we face some risk in keeping rates low.
The real problem with low fed rate now, as I see it, is the effect on financial markets. With low rates, the yields that banks make on lending is also low. So, not only are banks reluctant to take on too much risk right now (for good reason), but they also don't have much financial incentive to do so. If the statement had hinted at the possiblity of raising rates even as soon as the first quarter of 2010 this would have gone a long way in getting money flowing again, inspiring banks to lend, helping businesses make the investments they should be making in this downturn.
I certainly agree with the inflation statement:
With substantial resource slack likely to continue to dampen cost pressures and with longer-term inflation expectations stable, the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued for some time.
When prices are dropping there is little need to raise rates to slow down anything. I would have liked, and it seems like the market would have liked, a stronger hint as to when and how the Fed will reign in all of its liquidity programs and begin to inch up interest rates. It also would have helped people to believe that a real recovery is taking place.
I don't expect a change right now. Raising rates now or trying to get the Fed's balance sheet back to normal anytime soon would shock the system. Now is not the time. But we don't really read the Fed statement to read the committee's take on the current economic stituation. We are looking for some hints to the future. Apparently, the Fed is not looking far enough into the future to even hint in changes in policy. Alright, they "will gradually slow the pace of these purchases [mortgage-backed securities] in order to promote a smooth transition in markets," but this doesn't provide much guidance.
The main concern over rates is the impact on mortgage rates, and thus home purchases. If the Fed raises the target range for the federal funds rate from its current 0.0%-0.25%, the arguement goes, then mortgage rates go up and less people will buy homes. This is true, but not necessarily a bad thing. Many blame the whole housing bubble on Greenspan keeping rates low for so long, letting many people who shouldn't own homes get into them cheaply. Higher mortgage rates could slow recovery, but we face some risk in keeping rates low.
The real problem with low fed rate now, as I see it, is the effect on financial markets. With low rates, the yields that banks make on lending is also low. So, not only are banks reluctant to take on too much risk right now (for good reason), but they also don't have much financial incentive to do so. If the statement had hinted at the possiblity of raising rates even as soon as the first quarter of 2010 this would have gone a long way in getting money flowing again, inspiring banks to lend, helping businesses make the investments they should be making in this downturn.
I certainly agree with the inflation statement:
With substantial resource slack likely to continue to dampen cost pressures and with longer-term inflation expectations stable, the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued for some time.
When prices are dropping there is little need to raise rates to slow down anything. I would have liked, and it seems like the market would have liked, a stronger hint as to when and how the Fed will reign in all of its liquidity programs and begin to inch up interest rates. It also would have helped people to believe that a real recovery is taking place.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Those Afternoons: An Excerpt
The following is an excerpt from my short story "Those Afternoons":
The letter was stashed between a repair manual for the 1968-1976 Dodge Duster and another for the 1986-1987 Ford Taurus which leaned against one another on a shelf over his workbench. Harrison knew it was there as he walked out the side door of this house towards the garage. He had known it was there while he sat at the table eating grapefruit with his wife earlier that morning. He had known it was there the night before when he lay next to his wife in bed. He knew it was there since he put it there yesterday.
The letter came in the mail on Saturday. Harrison was working in his garage, sitting on a stool, trying to fix the fast idle cam on a carburetor when the mailman passed. He was glad to quit struggling with the thing and get the mail. He was in his late forties but already his hands felt blunted and shaky and looked perpetually swollen, calloused and dirty. Too much of his life had been spent underneath hoods trying to loosen rusted bolts that hid out of sight and nearly out of reach. His hands and back paid the price for that labor.
The telephone bill, the utility bill, two credit card applications, a new JC Whitney catalog and the letter. He recognized the handwriting immediately. Thirty years hadn’t changed it much since he’d first seen it, the words to “Rebel Rebel” written on the cover of a spiral notebook. But he hadn’t heard from Randy in many years. It wasn’t just the author of the letter, though, that made him hide it. It was the local return address.
Instead of walking the mail straight inside and using it as an excuse to have a Dr. Pepper and check the news from his recliner, he went back to his garage, a detached one-car unit that still had the old door that swung up flat in one piece, without the aid of an opener, the same garage where he’d worked with his father and his own son after that. He slid the letter between the soiled books without opening it.
Sunday morning he had patiently spooned bits of his grapefruit into his mouth while he looked over the classifieds, looking as he had for years for cars in need of repair that were going cheap, cars that he might turn around for a profit after a couple months’ worth of weekends spent working on them. And the whole while he could think about nothing but the letter, about what could have precipitated it, about what Randy could have to say to him now, after all this time.
Of the letter he said not a thing to his wife. She sat across from him, clipping coupons for her trip to the grocery that would follow church. Grace believed that going to church made her a better person. Not that God would look kindly on her, but the sermons and hymns served as a reminder of how to live a decent and moral life. Harrison had long ago wormed his way out of this duty, after his son, Jake, became too old for Sunday school. He was awkward in social situations and all the hand-shaking and niceties didn’t suit him. Grace seemed grateful for the ease of going alone, and Harrison was glad to have the house to himself, if only for a few hours. Usually he spent that time as he would have had she been home: in the garage.
The letter was stashed between a repair manual for the 1968-1976 Dodge Duster and another for the 1986-1987 Ford Taurus which leaned against one another on a shelf over his workbench. Harrison knew it was there as he walked out the side door of this house towards the garage. He had known it was there while he sat at the table eating grapefruit with his wife earlier that morning. He had known it was there the night before when he lay next to his wife in bed. He knew it was there since he put it there yesterday.
The letter came in the mail on Saturday. Harrison was working in his garage, sitting on a stool, trying to fix the fast idle cam on a carburetor when the mailman passed. He was glad to quit struggling with the thing and get the mail. He was in his late forties but already his hands felt blunted and shaky and looked perpetually swollen, calloused and dirty. Too much of his life had been spent underneath hoods trying to loosen rusted bolts that hid out of sight and nearly out of reach. His hands and back paid the price for that labor.
The telephone bill, the utility bill, two credit card applications, a new JC Whitney catalog and the letter. He recognized the handwriting immediately. Thirty years hadn’t changed it much since he’d first seen it, the words to “Rebel Rebel” written on the cover of a spiral notebook. But he hadn’t heard from Randy in many years. It wasn’t just the author of the letter, though, that made him hide it. It was the local return address.
Instead of walking the mail straight inside and using it as an excuse to have a Dr. Pepper and check the news from his recliner, he went back to his garage, a detached one-car unit that still had the old door that swung up flat in one piece, without the aid of an opener, the same garage where he’d worked with his father and his own son after that. He slid the letter between the soiled books without opening it.
Sunday morning he had patiently spooned bits of his grapefruit into his mouth while he looked over the classifieds, looking as he had for years for cars in need of repair that were going cheap, cars that he might turn around for a profit after a couple months’ worth of weekends spent working on them. And the whole while he could think about nothing but the letter, about what could have precipitated it, about what Randy could have to say to him now, after all this time.
Of the letter he said not a thing to his wife. She sat across from him, clipping coupons for her trip to the grocery that would follow church. Grace believed that going to church made her a better person. Not that God would look kindly on her, but the sermons and hymns served as a reminder of how to live a decent and moral life. Harrison had long ago wormed his way out of this duty, after his son, Jake, became too old for Sunday school. He was awkward in social situations and all the hand-shaking and niceties didn’t suit him. Grace seemed grateful for the ease of going alone, and Harrison was glad to have the house to himself, if only for a few hours. Usually he spent that time as he would have had she been home: in the garage.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
This Is What He Does: An Excerpt
The following is an excerpt for my short story "This Is What He Does":
Mitch stands in his bathrobe, staring out the living room window. Among the drooping arms of the fir trees dusk is gathering. There it is. The movement of something slipping stealthily between them in the corner of his eyes each time he blinks. The movement of some thing that his eyes will not catch.
The dusk creeps in for hours around this house, seated in a steep Colorado ravine that allows only a small respite from shadow each day, only a brief period of sunlight. Darkness grows from under the savage armed trees and slowly, nearly invisibly slides its way across the lawn until it envelopes the house.
He knows the smoke of darkness that blots out the world outside also surrounds him in the house. If he turns his eyes from their scanning of the yard, he will notice that he cannot see the wall behind him. No wood-paneled wall, no green worn couch begging to be replaced. Just a black void.
She should be home soon. Her lights will cut the darkness, stab through the trees, long shadows arcing over the grass. Unless. The drive from Denver is long, over chaotic freeways and winding foothill roads. She faces many dangers. Is it not a miracle that she makes it home everyday? A car might brake too quickly, a truck slide into her lane, her eyes wander from the road and her car be sent into the creek that chases the road leading to their house. Maybe she is there now, headlights beneath the surface of the water, a deep wound on her head. While he stands here.
The dark is breathing on the back of his neck when her headlights splash light suddenly into the room. He turns to find the kitchen, where she would enter. She cannot find him paralyzed in the living room. Reaching a hand where he cannot see, he finds the switch. In a moment of bravery, something against which he must draw his breath, steel himself, he flips the switch. He scans the room quickly for anything out of place, anything unexpected, unwanted. It is an act of daring, each door opened, each room suddenly illuminated, because he expects something. What, he doesn’t know. A monster, a dead body, maybe a burglar. Something sinister is waiting for him. Everwhere.
Joslyn enters to find Mitch at the kitchen table, seated before a glass, and she holds her breath. She cannot say a word to him yet. Still in his bathrobe, the man has not left the house today. Barely left since the day he lost his job. She’s tried not to be hostile with him, though she’s not sure why. That is most certainly what she wants, to scream in his face, to curse at him. But she doesn’t do this. No. She is reserved. She knows that her hostility towards him will find other outlets. And there is the possibility that he is not doing this on purpose. But, if he had any will, he could beat whatever paralysis he faced. To Josyln everything is a challenge, something to be sorted out, overcome, or conquered.
Nearly six months prior, on a night such as this, he had waited at the kitchen table for her to come home. He had no real explanation, stumbling over it.
“And you didn’t know this was coming?”
“No.” He looked pathetic. “Not really.”
“Restructuring?”
“That’s what they said.”
“You’ll get a good recommendation?”
“I assume.” The lights in the kitchen are bright and the windows only splash the fluorescent light back at them.
She wasn’t looking at him, staring instead at the intersection of wall and ceiling, sorting it out. “Contacts. You have contacts? Somebody you can call for other recommendations, or another job?”
“I suppose.” He obviously had not thought yet about another job.
Mitch stands in his bathrobe, staring out the living room window. Among the drooping arms of the fir trees dusk is gathering. There it is. The movement of something slipping stealthily between them in the corner of his eyes each time he blinks. The movement of some thing that his eyes will not catch.
The dusk creeps in for hours around this house, seated in a steep Colorado ravine that allows only a small respite from shadow each day, only a brief period of sunlight. Darkness grows from under the savage armed trees and slowly, nearly invisibly slides its way across the lawn until it envelopes the house.
He knows the smoke of darkness that blots out the world outside also surrounds him in the house. If he turns his eyes from their scanning of the yard, he will notice that he cannot see the wall behind him. No wood-paneled wall, no green worn couch begging to be replaced. Just a black void.
She should be home soon. Her lights will cut the darkness, stab through the trees, long shadows arcing over the grass. Unless. The drive from Denver is long, over chaotic freeways and winding foothill roads. She faces many dangers. Is it not a miracle that she makes it home everyday? A car might brake too quickly, a truck slide into her lane, her eyes wander from the road and her car be sent into the creek that chases the road leading to their house. Maybe she is there now, headlights beneath the surface of the water, a deep wound on her head. While he stands here.
The dark is breathing on the back of his neck when her headlights splash light suddenly into the room. He turns to find the kitchen, where she would enter. She cannot find him paralyzed in the living room. Reaching a hand where he cannot see, he finds the switch. In a moment of bravery, something against which he must draw his breath, steel himself, he flips the switch. He scans the room quickly for anything out of place, anything unexpected, unwanted. It is an act of daring, each door opened, each room suddenly illuminated, because he expects something. What, he doesn’t know. A monster, a dead body, maybe a burglar. Something sinister is waiting for him. Everwhere.
Joslyn enters to find Mitch at the kitchen table, seated before a glass, and she holds her breath. She cannot say a word to him yet. Still in his bathrobe, the man has not left the house today. Barely left since the day he lost his job. She’s tried not to be hostile with him, though she’s not sure why. That is most certainly what she wants, to scream in his face, to curse at him. But she doesn’t do this. No. She is reserved. She knows that her hostility towards him will find other outlets. And there is the possibility that he is not doing this on purpose. But, if he had any will, he could beat whatever paralysis he faced. To Josyln everything is a challenge, something to be sorted out, overcome, or conquered.
Nearly six months prior, on a night such as this, he had waited at the kitchen table for her to come home. He had no real explanation, stumbling over it.
“And you didn’t know this was coming?”
“No.” He looked pathetic. “Not really.”
“Restructuring?”
“That’s what they said.”
“You’ll get a good recommendation?”
“I assume.” The lights in the kitchen are bright and the windows only splash the fluorescent light back at them.
She wasn’t looking at him, staring instead at the intersection of wall and ceiling, sorting it out. “Contacts. You have contacts? Somebody you can call for other recommendations, or another job?”
“I suppose.” He obviously had not thought yet about another job.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Resting: An Excerpt
The following is an excerpt of my short story "Resting":
Brookforest was a low, sprawling facility that from the sky probably looked much like a smashed spider. The complex bore the traces of twenty-plus years under the Nebraska sun and storms and the neglect that reflected that familial neglect of those interred within.
Tracy’s stomach tightened each time she approached with the same tightness she remembered from the one time she had instigated an exercise regime that left her sore and sorry for herself. Coming up on Brookforest with Les made her feel worse. Surely he would think that she had just written her mother off and put her away for others to care for the way housekeepers care for the rooms of a highway motel.
Les, for his part, seemed as eager and interested as he did in any aspect of her life. He sat in the cab of her truck, his hands clenched, one around the other, betraying a nervousness. It had been his idea to meet her mother. He said that if they were starting an honest relationship than he had better meet her mother. Tracy had wanted to explain to him that what they had was an adult relationship that was not in any traditional way “honest.” She was concerned, though, that his real goal might be to size up their future, by seeing what she was likely to become, before getting in too deep.
They were only a few weeks into this relationship and she would take her chances. It had started, out of character for her, somewhat impulsively.
Like any other day, Tracy had steered the pick-up into the rest stop, with the AC blasting and the AM radio yammering about a harvest day festival at the county fairgrounds. She spun the wheel of her truck easily into a parking spot with one hand, while the other touched the sun-warmed saddle blanket seat cover and the blue workpants covering her thigh. First stop of the day and it was already hot.
To Tracy calling them rest stops didn't fit. While some resting took place, the half-acre that hugged the side of the interstate was mostly used for the bathrooms. Linking relieving one's self with resting didn't make much sense to her. Because she was employed to maintain rest stops, Tracy was more concerned with dirty diapers dropped in the parking lot and graffiti written in the stalls than the terminology.
The two rest stops on Nebraska's I-80 where she spent her days were so alike that she could forget whether she was on the eastbound or westbound side. The line of wind-whipped trees surrounding the area, and the others dispersed among picnic areas did little to stop the heat from collecting in the concrete and radiating back to her as she started a patrol of garbage cans. Tracy leaned her arms across the sides of the plastic trash bin she pushed along, the casters chugging uncomfortably against the concrete. Her eyes went momentarily to the three tractor-trailers parked in the far lot. Outside the shelter of the air-conditioned cab of the utility pick-up she drove, she began to sweat quickly. Beads rolled down her forehead, out of the short but thick and curly hair. The heat, though, did something positive to her. Because of her stocky shape, the heat gathered in her quickly, but it didn't overwhelm her. It radiated from her inside, out through her skin, making her aware of all the parts of her body. It began in her soft belly, her sides, her thighs, warming her center. The heat made her feel alive.
Brookforest was a low, sprawling facility that from the sky probably looked much like a smashed spider. The complex bore the traces of twenty-plus years under the Nebraska sun and storms and the neglect that reflected that familial neglect of those interred within.
Tracy’s stomach tightened each time she approached with the same tightness she remembered from the one time she had instigated an exercise regime that left her sore and sorry for herself. Coming up on Brookforest with Les made her feel worse. Surely he would think that she had just written her mother off and put her away for others to care for the way housekeepers care for the rooms of a highway motel.
Les, for his part, seemed as eager and interested as he did in any aspect of her life. He sat in the cab of her truck, his hands clenched, one around the other, betraying a nervousness. It had been his idea to meet her mother. He said that if they were starting an honest relationship than he had better meet her mother. Tracy had wanted to explain to him that what they had was an adult relationship that was not in any traditional way “honest.” She was concerned, though, that his real goal might be to size up their future, by seeing what she was likely to become, before getting in too deep.
They were only a few weeks into this relationship and she would take her chances. It had started, out of character for her, somewhat impulsively.
Like any other day, Tracy had steered the pick-up into the rest stop, with the AC blasting and the AM radio yammering about a harvest day festival at the county fairgrounds. She spun the wheel of her truck easily into a parking spot with one hand, while the other touched the sun-warmed saddle blanket seat cover and the blue workpants covering her thigh. First stop of the day and it was already hot.
To Tracy calling them rest stops didn't fit. While some resting took place, the half-acre that hugged the side of the interstate was mostly used for the bathrooms. Linking relieving one's self with resting didn't make much sense to her. Because she was employed to maintain rest stops, Tracy was more concerned with dirty diapers dropped in the parking lot and graffiti written in the stalls than the terminology.
The two rest stops on Nebraska's I-80 where she spent her days were so alike that she could forget whether she was on the eastbound or westbound side. The line of wind-whipped trees surrounding the area, and the others dispersed among picnic areas did little to stop the heat from collecting in the concrete and radiating back to her as she started a patrol of garbage cans. Tracy leaned her arms across the sides of the plastic trash bin she pushed along, the casters chugging uncomfortably against the concrete. Her eyes went momentarily to the three tractor-trailers parked in the far lot. Outside the shelter of the air-conditioned cab of the utility pick-up she drove, she began to sweat quickly. Beads rolled down her forehead, out of the short but thick and curly hair. The heat, though, did something positive to her. Because of her stocky shape, the heat gathered in her quickly, but it didn't overwhelm her. It radiated from her inside, out through her skin, making her aware of all the parts of her body. It began in her soft belly, her sides, her thighs, warming her center. The heat made her feel alive.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Long Live the "Difficult" Novel
I have read some difficult novels in my time. And I have read some page-turners. I've even read some literary page turners. But let's not think for a moment that the literary novel is dead.
Lev Grossman, in his Sunday article in the Wall Street Journal, "Good Books Don't Have to Be Hard," is under the serious misunderstanding that someone was forcing him to read hard books. He was apparently forced to shun commercialism, and he lumps us all in there, stating, "We crave such entertainments, but we despise them." This dichotomy between commercial and literary fiction has always been false. Indeed, there are the James Pattersons churning out book after book, but those books serve a purpose. And while I'm not going to like them, I don't despise them, or shame others for enjoying them. There are million shades of grey between black and white, though. Many of the book club books, books that are literary but sell like commercial fiction, are these page turners, these more accessible novels that Grossman think are just now returning.
I'm glad that Grossman's conscious has released him to read books with plot, but lets not "blame the Modernists." I agree with his assessment that "the Modernists broke the clear straight lines of causality and perception and chronological sequence, to make them look more like life as it's actually lived." And we should thank them for it, but the novel has moved on since Joyce and Woolf, and even Faulkner and Hemingway. But then he drags Cormac McCarthy into it. Neither No Country for Old Men nor The Road are anywhere close to a conventional model. I think some might call them downright hard, not to mention depressing. I don't think anyone could call McCarthy's fiction "a literature of pleasure."
"Should we still be writing difficult novels? Isn't it time we made our peace with plot?" Grossman asks. When novels are overrun by plot or simply difficult to be difficult, they fail and I'm not going to like them. The time for so-called difficult novels has not passed. There is no "revolution...from the supermarket racks." There is still place in this world for books by Denis Johnson, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Richard Ford. These are writers of books that are not driven by plot, but also not entirely commercially palatable. And I will take these books any day over something out of the mass-market factories. Call me me an "elite" if you wish, Mr. Grossman, but I'll take lyricism over simple "suspense and humor and pacing." You can have the novel that "entertains;" I'll take the one that moves me.
Lev Grossman, in his Sunday article in the Wall Street Journal, "Good Books Don't Have to Be Hard," is under the serious misunderstanding that someone was forcing him to read hard books. He was apparently forced to shun commercialism, and he lumps us all in there, stating, "We crave such entertainments, but we despise them." This dichotomy between commercial and literary fiction has always been false. Indeed, there are the James Pattersons churning out book after book, but those books serve a purpose. And while I'm not going to like them, I don't despise them, or shame others for enjoying them. There are million shades of grey between black and white, though. Many of the book club books, books that are literary but sell like commercial fiction, are these page turners, these more accessible novels that Grossman think are just now returning.
I'm glad that Grossman's conscious has released him to read books with plot, but lets not "blame the Modernists." I agree with his assessment that "the Modernists broke the clear straight lines of causality and perception and chronological sequence, to make them look more like life as it's actually lived." And we should thank them for it, but the novel has moved on since Joyce and Woolf, and even Faulkner and Hemingway. But then he drags Cormac McCarthy into it. Neither No Country for Old Men nor The Road are anywhere close to a conventional model. I think some might call them downright hard, not to mention depressing. I don't think anyone could call McCarthy's fiction "a literature of pleasure."
"Should we still be writing difficult novels? Isn't it time we made our peace with plot?" Grossman asks. When novels are overrun by plot or simply difficult to be difficult, they fail and I'm not going to like them. The time for so-called difficult novels has not passed. There is no "revolution...from the supermarket racks." There is still place in this world for books by Denis Johnson, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Richard Ford. These are writers of books that are not driven by plot, but also not entirely commercially palatable. And I will take these books any day over something out of the mass-market factories. Call me me an "elite" if you wish, Mr. Grossman, but I'll take lyricism over simple "suspense and humor and pacing." You can have the novel that "entertains;" I'll take the one that moves me.
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