At the club?s 46th annual book awards, Gilliam notes that the United States is in an era in which traditional standards and values seem to be crumbling. Americans are seeking encouragement and confidence. Gilliam covers American attitudes, gloomy contemporary fiction, and the way current literary fashion accentuates the negative. He would like writers to have a more balanced picture. He suggests that we might be on the verge of a new era of opportunity, and that what is lacking is the vision of a new age. Stegner calls for new words and discriminations for the broad words "writer" and "novel." Smith notes the absence of the splendid narrative history that was written in the 19th century.