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Sat 05 May 2007Is this the best ofthe US?FictionWhere has a decade gone? Has so much time dribbled away since Granta published its inaugural Best of Young American Novelists?Yes it has, and of that class of 1996, several - including Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Mona Simpson, Lorrie Moore, David Guterson, Ethan Canin, Robert O'Connor, Madison Smartt Bell and so on, who were back then already published and established - left the question of why herald writers most of whom were already known. The answer must lie in seeing how they have done since. Most of them appear to have peaked then.