Bennington Faculty and Alumni Help Select The New York Times Best American Fiction

When The New York Times Book Review wanted to identify “the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years,” they contacted “prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages” to chose. Among the judges, eight are from the Bennington College community.

“The Judges” included faculty members, Sven Birkerts, David Gates, and Phillip Lopate, writer-in-residence, Rick Moody, former faculty Kurt Andersen, as well as alumnus Jonathan Lethem ‘86, and Roxana Robinson ‘68. Other notable judges included John Irving, Tom Wolfe, Stephen King, and Alice Hoffman.

The Times list included four novels and one collection of novels as the best. In descending order: Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Don DeLillo’s Underworld, John Updike’s four-in-one Rabbit Angstrom, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and Philip Roth’s American Pastoral.

To read more, follow the link to the accompanying articles and the complete listings of the judges.