We Need to Talk About Zadie Smith: Why an Entire Generation Quit Writing
The other day I was on a Skype meeting with two other writers who are working to birth their first novels. Each of us has had success as writers. Myself as a memoirist and ghostwriter. Another as a journalist and food reviewer. And the third as a creative writing professor and short story author. And yet we are all pushing 40, or a tad past it, without reaching the place in our careers where we can sit back and say, “Aha. Made it.”
One of the writers, the short story author, commented on the call, “I just look at White Teeth…”
As soon as the title is out of her mouth, a part of me groans. It’s not in critique of Madame Smith’s prodigious opus. No one could argue with its merit, but for over 20 years now, I have heard way too many writers reference it, not as a literary masterpiece, but as the literary masterpiece they failed to write.
For us Gen X writers, we came of age in the time of Zadie Smith and Dave Eggers. Young writers anointed with the holy grail of commercial and literary success. Both of them attractive and charismatic. Both of them very, very cool.
We grew up in their shadows, taking our turns at writing versions of White Teeth and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. We waited for the literati to arrive on our doorstep…
