Plotting Lives of Quiet Contentment

Plotting Lives of Quiet Contentment

For some time now, I’ve found myself uninterested in—and even annoyed by—a lot of contemporary literary fiction. As a lifelong lover of literature, this is not a confession I ever expected to make. But most of the novels that win prestigious awards and attract effusive reviews are starting to run together. The line between so-called literary fiction and popular fiction has always been porous, but the only difference I now perceive is in the choi…