I read "American Woman" without knowing anything about it, and was shocked to discover somewhere along the way that it was supposed to be set in the 70s. The author makes no attempt to ground the novel in a period or mindset as others have noted, and the result is a very writerly, turgid ordeal. I kept going, hoping to find a resonant character or interesting idea, to little avail. By the end, however, I did work up some outrage--fury that writing programs and their progeny have so denatured and disemboweled American fiction. Fight the power! Shut down Iowa Writers Workshop!