Catching up on recent unread editions of the Washington Post Book World, I came across an interview with Tobias Wolff which accompanied the review of his new collection, Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories. As is sometimes the case, I found the questions to be as interesting as the answers.

Interviewer Daniel Asa Rose asked Wolff the following in the April 13 issue:

I’ll bet you’re sick of the term “dirty realism”—first applied to you and fellow writers Raymond Carver, Richard Ford et. al., by Bill Buford in Granta in 1983.

When Wolff replies that he doesn’t know what that term means, the interviewer explains:

To me it means martini drinkers writing about beer drinkers: the fascination certain middle-class authors have for working-class characters.

I was glad to see that Wolff had never heard of the term, since I had never heard of the term. I understood the school of writing practiced by Carver, Jayne Anne Philips, and others to simply be referred to as “minimalism.”

Need I be embarrassed by this hole in my knowledge? Raise your hand if you’re also unaware of this literary distinction.

Or am I the only one?