Books: The Sustaining Stream

The best-kept secret of the curious world of American publishing is that this country is in the middle of a modest literary boom. It is not a renaissance; the ages preceding this one have not been shamefully dark. Nor is there now any blinding coruscation of genius. But there is a gentle swell of hope and good prose.

With Hemingway and Faulkner dead, this is not a time of giants. The public is too easily preoccupied with giantism—an understandable result both of the publishers' belief that bestsellers sell best, and of the wistful ache...