This collection of essays by British authors offers refreshing perspectives on the vitality of contemporary American fiction. Unlike many such gatherings, the writers chosen here represent the continuing American obsession--both aesthetic and cultural--with the "new," and in each case newness becomes a revealing and highly individual concern. As Clarke points out in his introduction, while the fiction of the 1960s represented either a flight from or unwilling capitulation to history, the novelists treated here (E.L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison, Raymond Carver, and Gordon Lish) are "concerned with history." The volume covers the divergent ethnic responses of Rudolfo Anaya, Louise Erdrich, and Maxine Hong Kingston. ISBN 0-31203566-7: $35.00.