i agree with janey
the first 100 or so pages were really gripping
to the point, i think, that it was difficult to keep up the momentum in the same way...especially for a guy with a lot of grit and personality and spunk and almost as much writing talent

i mean, he's a great writer, but his celebrity is based more on his attitude and youth than his writing talent, I think.

as far as what jenkins was saying about contemporary writers not having a lot of courage, i think the MFA popularity has watered down a lot of the material that readers are getting...in addition to making people's voices cookie cutter clones of generations' past. So, the old guards...Faulkner, Joyce, etc...are being emulated, instead of this generation of writers truly creating their own synthesized voice.

But there are some great poets out...Suheir Hammad is one of my favorites and Yusef Koumanyakaa (I might have spelled that wrong) are both pretty powerful contemporary voices. Different generations, but still very attentive writing.

As far as fiction, I have a lot of favorites, since I love short fiction as well as novels. Shay Youngblood has a pretty distinct voice and has written some highly underrated narratives: Soul Kiss and A Black Girl in Paris. Janet Fitch wrote a wonderful book that's going to be adapted to film soon called White Oleander, which is close to brilliant. I co-sign on Colson Whitehead and add that Paul Beatty is a great writer even if his concepts aren't always successfully executed on the fiction front. His poetry is still effective and powerful. And I find it hard to disregard contemporary fiction writers when I think about the work of Junot Diaz, who I don't believe has put out any new material in the last six months or so...but Drown was a masterpiece and his voice is amazingly crisp and fresh.

So, I'm not that discouraged by the stuff that's coming out...and i think it's part of the responsibility of writers to remain optimistic about forging new paths and thoughts to make the writing spectrum open up some more.

Oh, damn. One more great fiction guy: Sherman Alexie is the shit. He gets a lot of hype and I tend not to buy into stuff like that. Still, he's an amazing writer and playwright and is a good example of courageous contemporary writers.