there's a great chris rock bit (redundant, i know) about how there's no such thing as "the african american experience".  to paraphrase: "if i go live in alaska and run sled dogs and live in an igloo, that's an african american experience, because i am an african american!"

the same goes for any notion of "the jewish american experience", i think, as it implies a singular experience, one way of existing in America as a Jew in the twenty-first century.  which is a weird, unhappy, bigoted fantasy.  arguably.

"the jewish novel", as it has been known, is quite certainly a dying animal (unintentional roth allusion!), because "the jewish experience" no longer exists (if it ever did).  this does not mean, however, that there are not wonderful books being written by jews, about jewish issues. and by non-jews about jewish issues.  and by jews about non-jewish issues. there is "a jewish experience" on display left and right in literature right now.  and not a single one is "the jewish experience."  

to ignore that is to focus on a very narrow sample of work, and, not at all incidentally, to be a poor reader of fiction, which should never strive to present answers; only ask questions.

Deresiewicz seems to tip his cards somewhat in his acknowledgment that in  life-after-Orthodoxy, nothing's really "jewish"...