Favorite (Living) Writers

For some reason over the past few days more than one person has asked me about my favorite living writers. Gulp - that was a scary question because most of my favorite writers are .... dead. Oddly, the question a few years ago would have produced an immediate response: the three horsemen of course - Roth, Updike, Bellow - and then the two great short story writers Trevor and Munro (who is still living but no longer writing). Could also add to the list Bolano and sebald and Garcia Marquez. But among writers today who rises to that level - which I'll define by a writer whose newest book I will always read? There are a few writers whom I really like and will read many of their new books but they're not "review proof" - that is I'll test the water before plunging in: maybe Beattie and Mcewen and Knausgaard are in this category. There are others whom I used to read each book as it came out but who on late career don't hold the same cachet, they seem to be repeating themselves w diminished effect: Murakami once a favorite falls in this camp. That leaves me w very few must read novelists living and writing today. One who comes to mind: Patrick modiano w his noir novels set in Paris and environs. Is he the only one? I have to think more about this - but perhaps I have outlived the writers who formed my literary taste and milieu. Perhaps we all do.

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