For Writers, Only Realism Was Equal to ’30s Crisis

As the Depression hit after the crash of October 1929, Edmund Wilson felt the ground under his feet give way. During the 1920s, he had made his name as a leading literary critic, a cheerleader for ambitious new writing who had helped bring the difficult Modernists of Europe to an American audience.

With the collapse of the Roaring Twenties, however, Wilson, like many literary writers, began to feel that perhaps he had been missing the real story all along. How could writers in good conscience devote themselves to literary experiments when millions of people were destitute and the U.S. seemed on the verge of collapse?