"Lord have mercy on us, we want a
'great' writer," wrote the
literary critic Leslie Fiedler
back in 1951. "It is at once the
comedy and tragedy of
20th-century American letters
that we simply cannot keep a
full stock of contemporary
'great novelists.' ... From
moment to moment we have the
feeling that certain claims ...
are secure, but even as we name
them they shudder and fall."
Fiedler's irony was directed at
F. Scott Fitzgerald, but his
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