The reader's biggest question after putting the book down (whether he or she puts it down after page 150, or after page 250, or at the very end) will be: Just how homogeneous was this mainstream middle? Is "coalesce" really the right verb to describe how this mainstream developed? A fuller description of the end result might have strengthened Richardson's claims about the mainstream's character and about the usefulness of the concept in the first place. Or, maybe it would have revealed such heterogeneity in the "mainstream" as to cast doubt. Perhaps the mainstream middle was really a "loose baggy monster," to borrow Henry James's description of big sprawling novels.
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