Late style, new starts, and Malamud’s <i>God’s Grace</i>

A surprising number of established authors write a late career novel that fits in a significantly different genre-such as parable or fable, postapocalyptic or speculative-than is typical for this writer. Why might authors decide to write in a substantially different style late in their careers? Drawing on psychological studies, this essay first explores how novelists, late in their careers, may use the wisdom gained throughout their lives as they conduct a sort of life review and turn to a new genre to address more explicitly their deep beliefs and questions. Second, this analysis places the fiction in the context of late style identified in various artistic fields. Finally, this essay argues that American Jewish writer Bernard Malamud's God's Grace serves as a fitting example of these late novels, as the postapocalyptic fable both highlights and makes explicit themes important to Malamud throughout his career yet seems also to offer some critique of the moral humanism he had urged.