As The New York Times reports:

Early this year, the Book Review’s editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify “the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.” Following are the results.














Steve Erickson













































THE FOLLOWING BOOKS ALSO RECEIVED MULTIPLE VOTES:A Confederacy of Dunces

John Kennedy Toole (1980)Housekeeping

Marilynne Robinson (1980)



Winter’s Tale

Mark Helprin (1983)



White Noise

Don DeLillo (1985)



The Counterlife

Philip Roth (1986)



Libra

Don DeLillo (1988)



Where I’m Calling From

Raymond Carver (1988)



The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien (1990)



Mating

Norman Rush (1991)



Jesus’ Son

Denis Johnson (1992)



Operation Shylock

Philip Roth (1993)



Independence Day

Richard Ford (1995)



Sabbath’s Theater

Philip Roth (1995)



Border Trilogy

Cormac McCarthy (1992-1998)



The Human Stain

Philip Roth (2000)



The Known World

Edward P. Jones (2003)



The Plot Against America

Philip Roth (2004)