Top ten novels and stories of the 1970s

Hilma Wolitzer is a recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award. She has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, New York University, Columbia University, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her first published story appeared when she was thirty-six, and her first novel eight years later. Her many stories and novels have drawn critical praise for illuminating the dark interiors of the American home. She lives in New York City.

Wolitzer's newest book is Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories.

At the Guardian she tagged ten top novels and stories of the 1970s, including:

Will You Please be Quiet, Please? The Stories of Raymond Carver (1976)

The lives of Raymond Carver’s working-class characters are conveyed in brief tales of longing and misery. Carver’s language is deceptively simple, as in this opening line: “Bill and Arlene Miller were a happy couple.” The reader, drawn in as if eavesdropping on strangers, is rewarded with startling psychological complexity. The mother of a violently disturbed boy tries to escape her frightening reality. A man overhears customers of his waitress wife ridicule her body, and compels her to lose weight. The “happy” Millers start to occupy their vacationing neighbour’s apartment, leading to a disastrous reckoning. The stories in this collection remain an unsparing depiction of how we live.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue