Literary Fiction and the XX Chromosome

I admit that the “Currently Reading” banner to the right of this text has had Infinite Jest blazoned across it for some time. As mentioned here in my July 2nd post, the novel is some 1,ooo-pages-plus-footnotes, and each page is packed with long words and sentences that begin “And but although…” David Foster Wallace is a master of his craft; few would dispute that.

But today’s post is about something a bit larger than DFW and the many-faceted brilliance of Infinite Jest. DFW is one of a handful of masters of contemporary lit fiction. Some other writers garnering fame in today’s literary fiction field are Dave Eggers, Thomas Pynchon, Jonathan Franzen, and Haruki Murakami. The folks behind the fat, bi-annual literary publication n+1 are all Harvard boys. n+1 editor Keith Gessen published his first novel, All the Sad Young Literary Men, this year, and its title may give away exactly what I’m getting at here.

Where are all the XX chromosomes in today’s fiction scene? This question popped into my head while I read this brilliant exchange between Infinite Jest protagonist Hal Incandenza and brother Orin Incandenza:

[The scene: Hal and Orin discuss over the phone Orin's recent tryst in the trailer of a woman he had just met]
HAL: The trailer person’s name. Jean. May. Nora. Vera. Nora-Jean or Vera-May.
‘…’
HAL: That was my question.
ORIN: I guess I’ll have to get back to you on that.
HAL: Boy, you really put the small r in romance, don’t you.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing offensive about this scene. Two brothers discuss their sexual escapades; a woman’s name is forgotten. So be it. But where is the XX analogue to DFW’s take on gender relations? Where is DFW’s brilliant counterpart, writing about punchy, precocious women and their dysfunctional families á la the Incandeza family of Infinite Jest?

In recent memory, there was Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, whose father-daughter road trip exploits led reviewers to draw a Lolita / Special Topics parallel. Which was unjustified, in my opinion. Pessl’s first novel, though engrossing, suggests more of a Da Vinci Code / Special Topics parallel. And then there’s the issue of her much-talked-about jacket photo, which led everyone to speculate that her book deal had been the result of her being, well, hot.

And she is hot. But who cares. What I care about is, she’s no DFW when it comes to literary fiction, and Special Topics need not be compared to Lolita.

Past generations have offered up some of the greatest fiction writers known to the Western Canon, who also had XX chromosomes. Virginia Woolf for starters, and the woman whose portrait headlines this blog, to name two heavy hitters.

Gender really shouldn’t have anything to do with writing literary fiction, right? We’re passed that. Generations ago. But it’s too much to ignore when all of the writers doing exciting things in this genre are of the XY type. And besides, men tend to write fiction with male protagonists. I’m hungering for something cutting edge about a brilliant, quirky, female.