Meanwhile

Latest statistics show the high school graduation rate in Detroit is 32%. An enormous underclass is being created in America. We're now a very hierarchical society of many classes, many levels; like a too-tall many layered cake. Right near the top of the cake, a mere sliver of it, exists the established literary world. The perspective of these insulated people is cut off from the rest of society-- yet in their narrow arrogance they imagine that their view is the only view. They can't feel the churning beneath their feet.

The result: an American literature which is increasingly irrelevant.