In Search of a New 20th-Century Canon

The photo of the author on the jacket of Stranger Than Fiction tells you something. Edwin Frank sits at a small desk, entirely hemmed in by overflowing bookshelves and teetering stacks of books. His reading glasses have been pushed back on his head, so that he can meet your gaze; you have interrupted him in the engrossing business of reading, reading, reading. Stranger Than Fiction is testimony to its author’s sheer appetite for books, and especially for 20th-century fiction at its most testing and ambitious. His article of faith is that the most demanding novels are often the most satisfying.