JESS WALTER FOLLOWED A CONVOLUTED PATH into the literary mainstream: He was a newspaper reporter who became a nonfiction author who became a ghostwriter who became a mystery novelist who became a literary novelist who also writes screenplays. But no matter the genre,  Walter’s work is stamped with vivid watermarks—prose that blends rapid-fire rants with unerring rhythm, … Read more

There is a kind of consensus among professional and amateur reviewers that Charles Baxter is a writer’s writer. Everyone says so. Baxter, who has called himself a “former poet,” is the author of five novels and four collections, including Believers, which he described to us as probably his best work. His novel The Feast of Love was a finalist … Read more