What desperately unfashionable writers do you really like?

Yeah, I must be about ten years older and he was more prominent when I was figuring out the literary landscape (because he was alive and publishing and reviewing and being reviewed), but is he that unfashionable? He wasn't that big a deal (compared to say Greene), and tbh I'd expect him to have a small but hardcore fanbase that's a mix of literary types and Downton lovers.

I think he has a bit of a reputation as being an author writing about the upper classes, for the upper classes, c.f. this LRB review http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n20/ian-sansom/every-rusty-hint This is unfair in my view.

only the hippest lit person on my masters course read powell. frankly if you like him rn you're probably ahead of the curve

i didn't realize themcswys coover under discuss was the playing cards one. that must be the better part of a decade ago

When you're as old as I am, the better part of a decade ago feels 'recentish' (also, only picked up that partic MCS second-hand a couple of years ago)

Am intrigued by Wins' comment that 'coover's latest novel reads like just-slightly-higher-brow stephen king' - sounds good to me

Was just thinking of someone I used to live, with who collected forgotten/unfashionable authors like Dornford Yates and Alec Waugh - reading the latter's Wiki entry, came across this little nugget - Waugh also has a footnote in the history of reggae music. The success of the film adaptation of Island in the Sun and the Harry Belafonte title track provided inspiration as well as the name for the highly successful Island Records record label.

I think of Mishima as very unfashionable.

'unfashionable' is a strange concept to apply to authors, since only a very small handful could be called 'fashionable' at any time (as opposed to 'popular' or 'critically praised'). for example, Rabelais was fashionable for a time in the 1930s, but he isn't in fashion now, although he is still critically praised - and he hasn't been popular for centuries.

my english (discipline not country) friends and i read barth in college in the late 90s, i would not be surprised if at least lost in the funhouse was still read in some circles? though i never see him talked about now. another who was very keen on the avant-garde canon at least read coover and followed him, w/ as much as i was reading at that time i still found that coover was too boring to stick with.

do people still read john hawkes? or robert coover? or john barth? all those blazing mod lights that were required on hepcat bookshelves once upon a time. feel like pynchon is the one who came out smelling like a rose.

I think of all these guys Donald Barthleme is actually the one everybody still enthusiastically likes and reads

Barthelme

I guess my own definition of unfashionable is the sort of writer who was once a very big deal, but who is now out of print, and whose books are very easily found jamming up the shelves of second-hand bookshops everywhere: ie the supply waaaaaaaay overruns any sort of demand

Just was recently reading John Hawkes.

Hhen I was working in book and music stores, saw artists go in and out of fashion, in terms of customer interest, during times of hype (movie-tie-ins etc) and nothing I could put my finger on, necessarily. Although The Great Gatsby, for instance, might have come back in the 70s even without hype of the Redford movie, because the glazed grand delusions, glitz and violence seemed to fit the times, and Scott and Zelda were already making a comeback...Can't think of any recent re-surfacings---suggestions??

^ often the case. And I wouldn't apply this to anyone pre-20th century as such. Popular/critical praise worked quite differently.

wrt Mishima this notion is unique as he is talked about re: manner of his death and that overshadows the work. Politically I would expect him to make a 'return' as nationalism is such a big deal - but there is v little about. xxp

"ie the supply waaaaaaaay overruns any sort of demand"

yeah, and this fits giles goat-boy perfectly. at least in the states. a million paperback copies of that book in the states.

I love that book

Ward, it's dope. Religious mania in a small town.

"desperately unfashionable" is pretty extreme though. people probably don't read milan kundera and manuel puig like they did in the 80's - when i felt like everyone was - but they probably still read them, right? they just aren't talked about like they were back then.

Hi Scott, guess this isn't too off-topic, in terms of popular authors prob never to be on the covers of Vanity Fair or NYRB---maybe Publisher's Weekly?---where's a good place to start with John Sanford? So many books!

I really love Anthony Trollope, am too out of fashion myself to know whether he's unfashionable.

for sandford i would say read any of the virgil flowers books. he's kinda my fave sandford character. but the lucas davenport/prey books get better as they go along. i think the later the better with those. so, i guess that means the 21st century books. the flowers series started in 2007 and they are all strong.

x-post

Thanks Scott--I'm rounding up stuff for my sister, the crime novel junkie. She's into the forensic especially, but also seemed to like this Harry Bosch omnibus I scored from library discards (like most books I buy these days, def all the crime), and some of Connelly's others, and an Ed McBain from the 70s, and recently James Lee Burke's Rain Gods: "So many horrible things, but so beautifully described, " she sez. Okay---she's currently off to NYC with Pelecanos's The Night Gardener and a couple more in that vein; got a Karin Slaughter (Metro Atlanta, intensely researched, judging by all the cops etc. she thanks in afterwords), waiting at home with a Lynda La Plante (creator of Prime Suspect, but this 'un's a disfunctional detective--not only ex-LAPD, an ex-hooker to boot, starting over with her own practice).

Some of the New Directions John Hawkes ebooks have really bad OCR typos.

Also, wasn't there an ILB thread recently in which some of these authors might have been discussed but it was a picture thread?

Found it. Sadly the OP photo has gone off the internet because of wins
coolest-looking author on the back of this book of interviews from 1974

Not what the OP had in mind, but Xenophon.

Very much enjoyed the recent New Yorker considerations of Grace Paley and Diana Trilling. Now I want them to re-re-discover Jean Stafford (James Wolcott's 80s piece doesn't seem to be on the Web, but he told an interviewer in the 90s, "People are still thanking me for that", as well they might), and Dawn Powell and Elizabeth Bowen, who may not need it, but couldn't hurt.

Jean Stafford was NYRB-republished a few years ago, 'The Mountain Lion', which got me into her

Loving Lawrence Durrell's Alexandrian Quartet right now.

Kobo Abe
Naguib Mahfouz

I thought unfashionable in this thread meant uncool rather than not currently famous?

Franzen

Probably, certainly more so than DFW, who remains ubiquitous in a lot of reading communities: if DFW seems unfashionable because he's been canonized and posthumously sentimentalized so quickly

I've seen a glut of hit pieces on DFW and DFW bros lately, but tbh I've never actually met a "DFW bro". Are they an actual thing? (I've only read the McCain book, which was pretty dull.) I liked this though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eO2QfEGK6U

Very much enjoyed the recent New Yorker considerations of Grace Paley and Diana Trilling.

especially the D. Trilling piece!

re: Barth

Soderbergh's been working on an adaptation of The Sot-Weed Factor for HBO for the past couple of years. Seems like the kind of thing that's destined never to see the light of day though

I think he might already have been mentioned but TC Boyle

never read unfashionable writers, whats the point in wasting all that time reading w/o any style-points?

tbh I've never actually met a "DFW bro". Are they an actual thing?

they were definitely a thing ca. 1999 i know that, and it turned me WAY off

Never read it or any Boyle but Tortilla Curtain was ripped off by the Paul Haggis Crash, right?

Regardless he def meets the threshold for this thread by clogging up used bookstore shelves.

Boyle is a good answer but I really liked him back when he was fashionable (late 80s early 90s) and I truly don't know whether I would like him now.

I refuse to live in a world where Grace Paley is desperately unfashionable. Kinda ignored, sure. But surely still in the "writer's writer" box where she's mostly always been relegated?

Yeah I wouldn't put paley here

I can't remember if I said this already itt but I really like Angela Carter

i read TC Boyle years ago and he seems ok-ish. he really is literally unfashionable though, almost impressively so.

uncool rather than not currently famous

what's the difference

not currently famous = obscure

uncool = name is still remembered as being emblematic of a literary style / trend / movement which makes people go "ugh"

Yeah

I guess I'm blissfully unaware of people that go "ugh"

I am aware of what shows up in bookstores

You must be aware of the different reasons people find Franzen, Roth, Martin Amis, John Norman, Jackie Collins, VC Andrews, Ayn Rand, Left Behind, Piers Anthony, Tolkien, Lovecraft, Heinlein, RE Howard, Pratchett, Dean Koontz, EL James, Dan Brown, Hubbard, James Redfield, Jeffrey Archer, Ben Elton, Nick Hornby and many others totally "ughhh" and uncool.

I guess my own definition of unfashionable is the sort of writer who was once a very big deal, but who is now out of print, and whose books are very easily found jamming up the shelves of second-hand bookshops everywhere: ie the supply waaaaaaaay overruns any sort of demand

― James Morrison, Saturday, 16 January 2016 21:52

Guess this was the intended criteria but how many second hand stores are loaded with Mishima, Kobo Abe and Barth?

Franzen, Roth, Martin Amis, John Norman, Jackie Collins, VC Andrews, Ayn Rand, Left Behind, Piers Anthony, Tolkien, Lovecraft, Heinlein, RE Howard, Pratchett, Dean Koontz, EL James, Dan Brown, Hubbard, James Redfield, Jeffrey Archer, Ben Elton, Nick Hornby

this is a funny list partly because it bears very little relation to any of the authors cited in this thread (ditto James Morrison's criteria)

people just seem to be listing authors that are now obscure. Most of the authors noted here are not "jamming up the shelves of second-hand bookshops everywhere"

You're far more likely to encounter Barth second-hand than new

Once popular author now only found in 2nd hand shops: Dennis Wheatley

Barth and Barthelme I both def see second-hand, Franzen too.

But H.E. Bates? Jean Stafford? C.P. Snow? A.J. Cronin? I have no idea who these people are

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