The central conceit of this article is true, but not universal. Yes, there are a lot of pissypants little twats running around these days. But the lit world has more than enough room for blustery fake macho, too: books like A Million Little Pieces and Another Bullshit Night In Suck City get hyped to the skies, and let's not even talk about the cult of Chuck Palahniuk. It seems obvious that the reviewer just got pissed off and decided to connect the dots between the three folks he was currently finding most intolerable. The plural of anecdote being data, and all that.
(For the record, I hate both the pussyboy artistes and the faux-knuckledraggers. I'm kinda hoping there's a Third Way, a middle path. (If there isn't, I'm doomed to a life of writing nonfiction.))
UPDATE: Speaking of writers who are neither pussies nor testosterone-addled psychopaths, there's a moderately interesting article on Michel Houellebecq in the L.A. Weekly. Hope the English translation of his new one doesn't take too long to arrive.
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