Sometimes it’s easier to name a phenomenon than to describe it. As early as 1987, members of the so-called Literary Brat Pack admitted it was a hoax concocted for a magazine spread. “We were strangers, or — after a few photo shoots — superficial acquaintances, a fictional ‘pack’ of fiction writers,” Jill Eisenstadt wrote. “The parallels so widely noted in our work were based on little more than circumstance.” They were young and white; a few of them had overlapped at Bennington, but didn’t really hang out. As for their legacy? Eisenstadt fell off the map after a lovely debut, Bret Ellis and Jay McInerney became Republicans, Donna Tartt became Goth J.K. Rowling. Some good books, some bad ones, nothing to peg a thesis to.
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