Hatchet Jobs: Writings on Contemporary Fiction - Hardcover

Shatteringly honest, disturbing, and provocative.

"Dale Peck may have an ego the size of Montana. He may have annoyed half the known literary world with his screeds on other writers. But he may also be one of our most adventurous and singularly talented writers working today." —San Francisco Chronicle

"Alive, crackling and sparkling with electric energy . . . Peck's style is classic American, a jivey mix of rhetoric and spontaneity." —The Washington Post

"Peck challenges received critical wisdom with energy, fire, and unmitigated gall. Behind the loudmouth cynicism is an idealist who'd open a hill of literary oysters in search of a single pearl." —The Boston Globe

A noted novelist reviews works of contemporary fiction, scrutinizing the publishing climate that fosters what he believes is mediocre work and showing how twentieth-century literary movements shape fiction. 12,000 first printing.