The "Literary Brat Pack" were a group of young American authors, including Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz, Jay McInerney and Jill Eisenstadt, who emerged on the East Coast of the United States in the 1980s.
The earliest published use of this term to refer to writers from that generation was in an article by Bruce Bawer that was entitled "The Literary Brat Pack", that appeared in the Spring 1987 issue of the short-lived West coast magazine Arrival and was included in his 1988 book Diminishing Fictions.
Bawer devoted special attention to the writers Meg Wolitzer, David Leavitt, Peter Cameron, Susan Minot, and Elizabeth Tallent, and contrasted the often great critical acclaim they had garnered with their "decidedly modest accomplishments.
Spy magazine produced a booklet in the style of CliffsNotes parodying the scene; in addition to the other authors, the book briefly mentions Michael Chabon and David Foster Wallace as young novelists who made their debut around the same time.
[5] David Lipsky is not usually mentioned in connection with the Brat Pack, although he attended Bennington College at the same time as Bret Easton Ellis (later transferring to Brown University) and published his first book while still in his early twenties.