Ruth Franklin says in her New Republic review of the new Dalkey Archive anthology Best European Fiction 2010 what I wanted to say in mine, but didn't, as I just don't have the chops when it comes to contemporary American literature: 

"I was surprised to find Smith (a British writer of Caribbean descent who lives partly in the United States) pronouncing a strangely antiquated definition of American writing in her introduction to Best European Fiction 2010, a new anthology edited by Aleksandar Hemon and published by Dalkey Archive Press. “It seems old-fashioned to speak of a ‘Continental’ or specifically ‘European’ style,” Smith (correctly) begins, but she continues: “If the title of this book were to be removed and switched with that of an anthology of the American short story, isn’t it true that only a fool would be confused as to which was truly which?” The differences, she argues, go beyond the “obvious matter of foreign names and places.” European fiction shows “a strong tendency towards the metafictional”; an interest in magic realism (one writer enjoys a fantasy breakfast with Murakami; another imagines that Gustav Klimt has 14 illegitimate sons all named Gustav); and an “epigraphic, disjointed structure” featuring abrupt endings. These stories, she concludes, “seem to come from a different family than those long anecdotes ending in epiphany, popularized by O. Henry.” And these writers’ models are not O. Henry or Hemingway, but Barth, Barthelme, Beckett, Kafka, Sebald.

O. Henry! When was the last time you saw a reference to him in a contemporary American short story—or anywhere else? What struck me about Smith’s description of this supposedly European style was how well it applies to new American writing. Today, the greatest remaining practitioners of the traditional, linear short story Smith seems to be invoking are Alice Munro and William Trevor—neither of whom is American. (She’s Canadian, he’s Irish.) Meanwhile, in American fiction, the kind of fragmentary, fantastic writing that was once experimental has now become common, thanks to the influence of literary journals such as McSweeney’s (as I once argued in Slate). Barth and Barthelme—both of whom are American—are most definitely among the progenitors of this work, but Murakami and Houellebecq are its current patron saints. Kafka’s influence, of course, is a given everywhere, but Sebald was far more popular in England and the United States than among his compatriots on the Continent."

Any observations I  might personally make about American literature would be based on instinct and a partial reading history, but by no means do I feel well-versed enough in contemporary American writing to make this kind of claim.

However. I did ardently disagree with Smith's claim that only a fool would think he was holding a collection of American short stories in his hand. Call me a fool, but I don't care:

1) The influence of American writers like David Foster Wallace, Donald Barthelme, John Barth, et al, on these European writers is inarguable

2) The influences fuelling this European writing are exactly those that fuel American writers (as Franklin points out)

3) The only difference, then, is of cultural, social, political context. And *that* is what I focus on in my review. Which you'll get to see any day now. Right Scott?