Fiction chronicle November 2016
The kids those days
On The Girls by Emma Cline, The Nix by Nathan Hill, Prodigals by Greg Jackson, and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
Though someone would now pay a social price for referring to hostesses, coeds, or members of the steno pool as “girls”—that’s “women”—the noun is enjoying a literary revival. Following the success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train, recent or upcoming titles include Girl About Town, Beware That Girl, The Second Girl, The Lost Girls, The Girl in the Ice, Nowhere Girl, Sarong Party Girls, Girl in the Shadows, and Girls on Fire; as well as Good Girl, Good Girls, and
A Message from the Editors
At The New Criterion we will always call things by
their real names.
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