Though Bill Thomas of Doubleday disagrees that this shift in publishing has created better fiction writers, he suggests it has coincided with a really good crop of emerging American novelists. I think American fiction is in a very good place right now, says Thomas, who edited Jonathan Lethems commercial breakthrough, Motherless Brooklyn, before ascending to his current post. If you look at Jonathan Safran Foer, no one said, Well, this is a difficult postmodern novel by an unknown writer, were not going to get involved. Everyone bid on it. That feeling of excitement when you start turning pages of a manuscript and you want to share this with the world, that still drives the business.