Kmart realism, also called low-rent tragedies, is a genre of minimalist American short fiction that became popular in the 1980s. It takes its name from the discount retail chain Kmart, a deliberately unglamorous emblem for fiction that renders the flat, unadorned texture of ordinary working-class American life.
Facts
Place of Origin Notable ExampleSafeway (Frederick Barthelme) 1 Defining TraitReproduces the disintegration of public life and the colonization of private life by consumer capitalism 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Kmart realism - Wikipedia
Lead sentence
a form of minimalist literature found in American short fiction
Notable authors
is noted for his use of Kmart realism in stories such as "Safeway"
Style
represent and reproduce the disintegration of public life [and] the colonization of private life by consumer capitalism
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