The term ‘hysterical realism’ was supposed to be the first salvo in a literary feud. While the feud never really took off, the term itself, despite being intended in a pejorative sense, has gained ...

In a 2000 essay for The New Republic, literary critic James Wood coined a term that's become familiar to lovers of fiction: "hysterical realism." Wood's target was Zadie Smith's "White Teeth," along ...

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. When you read Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, you enter a tragedy that plays out over its 900 pages and, ...

Zadie Smith’s debut was lined up alongside Pynchon and DeLillo as a morbid symptom of a trend towards fiction trying to cram too much in White Teeth is not only a publishing phenomenon and a ...

James Wood dubbed a subspecies of the long novel “hysterical realism.” These are the heavy tomes that spill ambition all over the floor of Barnes & Noble. Pretentious and clever, they set up complex ...

In a 2000 essay for The New Republic, literary critic James Wood coined a term that's become familiar to lovers of fiction: "hysterical realism." Wood's target was Zadie Smith's "White Teeth," along ...

Critic and novelist James Wood has often dinged other writers for what he calls "hysterical realism," but his new novel Upstate — while... In a 2000 essay for The New Republic, literary critic James ...