Moral Worlds of Contemporary Realism

Literature has never looked weirder--full of images, colors, gadgets, and footnotes, and violating established norms of character, plot, and narrative structure. Yet over the last 30 years, critics have coined more than 20 new “realisms” in their attempts to describe it.


What makes this decidedly unorthodox literature “realistic”? And if it is, then what does “realism” mean anymore?

Examining l...