<DIV>In <i>The Southern Writer in the Postmodern World</i> Fred Hobson offers a witty and engaging "preliminary estimate" of some of the most prominent new figures in southern fiction. Although he discovers no shortage of talent, he does find "various and conflicting attitudes toward the south and the contemporary world." Especially concerned with the relationship of these new writers to their literary predecessors, he traces the continuity--or lack of continuity--of certain attitudes, fictional approaches, and even values that informed southern writing during its earlier flowering in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.</DIV>