The Impish Modernism of Michael Clune

A common knock against contemporary novels is that they’re written with Hollywood in mind, briskly paced books built for easy adaptation to screen. What’s disappearing, it’s been argued, is the very quality that makes fiction unique among narrative mediums: direct access to the insides of characters’ brains. This may explain the enduring popularity of Jonathan Franzen’s densely interior social realism. But for all the psychological depth of his novels, Franzen is a fundamentally conventional stylist.