Books now serve us as sedatives
Transgressive fiction" has become an oxymoron. Almost all the dynamic, edgy storytellers have moved to film, and books have fallen into that twilight of pre-death where live theater limps along. The most successful books now serve us as sedatives, confirming the values and worldviews their readers already hold. They're the books we read as sleeping pills at bedtime.
When was the last book banned? Oh, how I miss the great book bonfires of my Christian youth! That's when books had some power! When they had to be burned like witches.