![]() “It was just funny,” Jonathan Lethem said recently. It was a coincidence that so many of the best rising novelists were called Jonathan simultaneously, it was no coincidence at all. Even if you liked some or all of the writers individually, the nickname had a nicely fed-up feel. As the Jonathans sailed to black-tie literary fame, a different world was quietly cracking open behind them, in which the roads to mainstream success as a novelist were not mapped primarily through affluent, melancholy whiteness. It was a classification at once mindless and perceptive. And that just puts us clear of the letter J. Joshua Ferris and Jeffrey Eugenides and Junot Diaz - all Jonathans, and maybe even Jennifer Egan too. It helped but was not essential to be named Jonathan. It was a job we were sure would last forever. They arrived between 19, novelists tasked with relieving the graying Roth and Updike as our frontline reporters from the psyche of the American male. ![]() ![]() ![]() The Jonathans! Suddenly it seems like a long time ago. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. ![]()
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