The World According to Zadie Smith

Which of us might feel remotely interested in a book called The Burned Children of America? On the other hand, if it is called Zadie Smith I...

Which of us might feel remotely interested in a book called The Burned Children of America? On the other hand, if it is called Zadie Smith Introduces the Burned Children of America, one is immediately intrigued. This collection follows the publication of the 81st Granta, the one that brought to us the best of young British novelists 2003, such as they are. Zadie Smith is the common factor linking these collections. In Granta, we read her short story ‘‘Martha, Martha’’, about a young British black woman, confused and homesick, looking for a cheap house in Boston. In the other volume, Smith introduces, as the cover blurb says, ‘‘nineteen of the best young writers from the USA’’.

Smith has not edited this collection: one has to turn the pages and read closely to discover that its editors, Marco Cassini and Martina Testa, brought out the Italian edition in 2001. Smith, who herself made the transatlantic crossing only recently, makes a valiant effort to introduce us not only to these young writers, but also to America, and the inexplicable sadness of living there. Nevertheless, as she herself is rather a cheerful sort, her upbeat exhortations (‘‘Why so sad, people?’’ and ‘‘You can taste it in your morning Cheerios’’) only serve to heighten the gloom-tunes that lie within these pages. Fear of death and advertising, she offers, are the reasons for this terrible sadness. Advertising, does she mean — or the fear of advertising? We do not know, and we suspect it makes little difference. That part of Smith’s essay is rather weak, and filled with generalisations (‘‘Advertising doubles for life, supplants, creates simulacra’’). But within her breezy introduction (‘‘I was cringing my way through a reading’’) lie some astute observations about the writers included here.

Such as A.M. Homes, whose story ‘‘A Real Doll’’, about a boy and his Barbie, is one of the best in this collection. ‘‘You cannot shake a Homes story off your mind, you cannot rid yourself of the creeping unease it brings to your bedside table,’’ writes Smith.

There are other delights in this collection: delights, despite their harrowing themes. David Foster Wallace’s story ‘‘Incarnations of Burned Children’’, about a toddler who dies of burns — the taut, powerful gem from which the collection gets its title. Dave Eggers, whose ‘‘Letters from Steven, a Dog, to Captains of Industry’’ — a story that is really made up of such letters, in so many words — is a whimsical delight. Amanda Davis, to whose memory this book is dedicated, with her story ‘‘Faith or Tips for the Successful Young Lady’’. (Mystifyingly, the biographical notes tell us that Davis ‘‘lives in New York City’’ and also that she ‘‘died in March 2003’’. What they don’t tell us is that she died in a plane crash while travelling in her father’s plane trying to promote her new book because, it seems, her agent couldn’t be persuaded to organise a book tour for her).

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Abortions, scalding, mammograms, malls, cancer, commerce, racial crimes, hard times: it seems that these make up the only territory that the new American fiction can slash and burn. If there is a grim theme running through some stories, there is also a sense of morose self-pity. Of sitting inside the invisible malls and tacky timeshares being sad — and imagining that no one has ever been quite so sad before.

As Smith wonders: ‘‘Why so sad, people? The community described in these stories (and the people who wrote them) is nothing if not privileged, educated, lucky, rich, most often Wasps, American. Why are these writers burned, what is the originating trauma, exactly?’’

Finally, is this collection representative of the best young American writing? Some of it, certainly, but I can straightaway think of at least one yawning absence: ZZ Packer, the brightest young writer I have read in recent years.

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