In the contemporary moment, we crave the truthful and the genuine. Increasingly worn out with postmodernism's legacy of fracture and detachment, with the constant cultural call for the snide and the cynical, a shared wish for candour is distinctly emergent in our public mind. In the simplest possible terms, we don't want to be ironic any more. We want to say what we mean and mean what we say. Allard Den Dulk's new book, Existentialist Engagement in Wallace, Eggers and Foer, positions itself squarely in this cultural context of “post-postmodernism” or “the new sincerity.” It is concerned in the first instance with how writers of fiction since the 1990s have fought a way forward from postmodernist cynicism and play. With reference to three writers in particular – David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer – Den Dulk argues that the portrayal of contemporary America in these recent writings constitutes a creative engagement that is at once deeply literary and deeply philosophical. Wallace is considered the central figure of the trio, the pioneer and primary theorist of this new direction. Eggers and Foer are considered the most obvious inheritors of Wallace's legacy and kinship.

For Den Dulk, there are two sides to this trio's philosophical engagement: a diagnosis of the contemporary problem and an attempt through the fiction to offer a solution. Thus his book divides neatly into two parts: first “Problems” (identified as “hyper-reflexivity” and “endless irony”), and second “Engaged Fiction” (in responding to these problems, Den Dulk argues, the trio are motivated by the ideals of “sincerity,” “reality-commitment” and “community”). Finally, in exploring the distinctly philosophical register of this fiction, Den Dulk has recourse to the existentialist philosophies of Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus and Wittgenstein. Kierkegaardian irony is used as a perspective on Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; Sartre on authenticity is brought into conversation with the primary characters of Infinite Jest (Wallace) as well as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Foer).

Den Dulk's book is admirably detailed and thorough, though it can be clunkily written at times (there is a lot of unnecessary reference to “what I will do next,” “the purpose of this section” and so on). Helpfully, he does give some flesh to “the new sincerity,” a notion always in danger of vagueness and overuse. Exploring how the term relates to the associated ideal of Sartrean authenticity, Den Dulk is particularly good when reading the characters of Infinite Jest.

Though classic existentialist thinkers (Kierkegaard and Sartre primarily) provide the bulk of the theoretical framework, Den Dulk is actually at his most lucid and inventive when writing about Wittgenstein. For this reader the best chapter of Existentialist Engagement is chapter 5, “Wittgenstein and Wallace: The Meaning of Fiction.” Den Dulk follows a number of intriguing intellectual threads in this context. Drawing a distinction between “language games” and “language play,” he develops Marshall Boswell's insightful comparison between Wittgenstein and Derrida. As Den Dulk understands Wittgenstein's picture of language as concerned primarily with the importance of community and commitment, he illustrates further how Wittgenstein might be taken as the primary philosophical ally of Wallace – at least as the latter fights in his fiction the dual philosophical threats of solipsism and scepticism.

Wittgenstein, of course, is interested in language in a way that the classic existentialist thinkers simply aren't. This is certainly one reason why his philosophical work provides a promising theoretical resource for readers of contemporary fiction. The difficulty with existentialism as a theoretical perspective on literature is that it can only ever go so far; it can only ever ventilate discussion of character or theme. But what Den Dulk does very well with his particular existentialist framework, and with this particular trio of creative writers, is illustrate the movement between literature and philosophy as pursued in contemporary American fiction with great commitment and great flair. In so doing he illustrates ethical as well as existential promise, that “the new sincerity” remains an opportunity for fiction and philosophy both.