Wood termed this genre “hysterical realism,” suggesting that Charles Dickens’ similarly maximalist novels might be seen as forerunners to Smith, Foster Wallace, Pynchon, and others, noting, “these books share a bonhomous, punning, lively serenity of spirit.” Smith’s works have also been included in the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon’s designation “historiographic metafiction,” describing novels that are heavily reliant on historical events and figures, yet simultaneously metafictional-involving narrators who provide commentary on the novel’s progress, signaling to its status as fiction. In 2000, critic James Wood compared White Teeth’s “ambitious,” sprawling plot and generally optimistic, vital tone to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996) and Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (1997), as well as other works by Salman Rushdie and Don DeLillo.
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