"The End of Intelligent Writing" isn't about that, and isn't itself as intelligently written as it could and should have been. Many will say the title should have been "Richard Kostelenetz, His Enemies and Friends," and while they would be wrong, Kostelanetz has let himself in for it. He spends the first half of the book on his enemies—he takes Jason Epstein and The New York Review of Books to be the centers of power in literary-political America, and he works from there, identifying establishments here and in-groups there. He offers his list of those who count, one that is accurate enough, one supposes, but boringly rude, and not as much news as Kostelanetz himself thinks. The second half is about his friends, the young writers who have been excluded, and he offers a list of these too, to which he attaches this caveat: "Any 'critic of...