James Smith: [Not So Young] Americans

There's no getting away from it: writing about the life crises of late-middle-aged men is the stock-in-trade of the contemporary American late-middle-aged male author.

But - boy oh boy - do they do it well. I've realised that I have become addicted to the way in which their characters gamely try their best to hold fast in a world that - to them at least - is going awry through no discernible fault of their own. Anyone familiar with Frank Bascombe, Richard Ford's Pulitzer Prize-winning creation, will know what I mean, but I'm here to tell you that Frank's in good (or similarly battered) company across the States…

I've read some of Donald Barthelme's strange and experimental short stories, but I'd never come across his brother Frederick until I picked up a copy of Waveland in my extraordinarily good local independent bookshop in SE London. Set on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it's about little more than a divorce and the realigning of one's life priorities as one gets older, but the dialogue is so crackingly good that this most common of modern scenarios (with a few less than common twists, it has to be said) comes truthfully to life.

A zanier take on the theme is provided by Jim Harrison in the oddly titled (for UK readers, anyway - the book's theme is anything but military) The English Major. Cliff's wife wants rid of him, so he sets out on a shambolic road trip with a jigsaw puzzle of the United States and a sex-crazed, cellphone-obsessed ex-student for company. Craving only peace and an opportunity to think about the future, he finds himself harangued on all sides. Is 'hilariously profound' a legitimate critical judgment? If it isn't, it should be …

I can't not mention the great Thomas McGuane, whose Nothing But Blue Skies is probably the novel I've reread most often. It is quite possibly the funniest book ever written about a man going spectacularly off the rails, but you'll struggle to find an edition of it on sale in the UK. Luckily, his latest collection of stories is in print over here.

Frederick Busch died in 2006 but his last collection Rescue Missions serves as a fittingly elegiac memorial to a great writer - these stories are about regret, sadness and paths not taken, but on occasion he allows his protagonists a second chance of happiness. (It's also worth checking out The Night Inspector, his novel about Herman Melville.)

It's not only the beige generation that's in trouble - a clutch of other American writers little known this side of the Atlantic are producing work that shines a light on ordinary lives gone wrong: we've been lucky enough to have Donald Ray Pollock's scabrous story collection Knockemstiff published in the UK, but do try to find Ron Rash's Chemistry and Other Stories - more tales of dead-beat poor folk up against it in the Appalachians - or Keith Lee Morris's prosaically-titled but punch-packing novel The Dart League King (really). The characters in these stories make you grit your teeth in fear (and offer up a prayer or two in thanks for not being them), but that's no reason not to read them. Honestly.

For gentler (but no less moving) fare, try Dan Chaon's Among the Missing; or Jim Shepard's Like You'd Understand, Anyway: tales of modern American life interspersed with clever historical fiction featuring doomed Australian explorers and Roman centurions (not in the same story). Charles D'Ambrosio's The Dead Fish Museum is similarly diverse in theme and style.

So. You might be getting the idea that I like novels that highlight the, shall we say, grimmer, greyer, corners of life. You'd be right, but these writers do it so damn well. You might never have heard of these guys, and it may take a bit more effort or time to get hold of their books, but I don't think you'll be disappointed if you do.