A first novel is like spring lamb, tender and pink. Athenas that leap from the writer’s head armor-clad—Marilynne Robinson’s “Housekeeping,” say—may not count. Better to find a novel that requires indulgence—Fitzgerald’s “This Side of Paradise” or Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” Débuts, even from much tougher writers, allow the reader to enjoy a guilty sense of paternalism: you protect débuts like Naipaul’s droll “Miguel Street,” or James’s thin “Daisy Miller,” or Coetzee’s compacted, miserable “Dusklands,” from the full force of your regular expectations.
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