Defining 'new' fiction

What is 'new' fiction? Is it a piece of literary work that has been produced in the last few years, or does it have to do with the style and format of the writing? What makes it good? We get a lot of it at the library, obviously, and I realized that I haven't read much of it. Glancing through the shelves, I pulled down "The Book of Portraiture" by Steve Tomasula. I'd never heard of him before, but the cover looked interesting. Not sure what I was getting into, but I figured maybe it would help me with a definition.

Tomasula doesn't put this book together in the 'normal' fashion. He breaks it into sections, each one representing a different story, or portrait. Colored paper, font and page design separate each one. Plus, within each section are random pictures, drawings, historical information, or family trees. Sometimes, I wondered if this was even a real book. Then I got to the section where each character is represented by a single letter. Though each character is given a name, the letters are used more often, and I couldn't keep them all straight. I will say that each section does have a link between them that was easy to identify. I think that's the only reason I kept reading. Each character attempts to define their own image of themselves, hindered by the way society views them. Each endures an inner struggle to figure out who they are outside of society, and how they will leave a piece of themselves behind.

I found that I didn't like this particular piece of contemporary fiction. Though the point the author tries to make is a good one, I felt it sometimes got lost in the shuffle. The constant shifts and inserted materials took me out of the portrait at hand, making it hard for me to see the connections. I also didn't like the way the book was set up. Rather than creating a uniform piece, where the elements intertwine, I found it to be choppy. I liked each section by itself, as if it were a collection of short stories, but when put with all the other sections, it didn't work for me. Like when he used letters instead of complete names, and had the letters at the top of the page with lines. I didn't see the point and most of the time, passed it over. In another section, only half of one page would contain text, leaving the other half blank, and then the next page would do the same thing, only alternating whether the text was on the top or bottom of the page. I couldn't figure out why. I realize that these were conscious choices; I just didn't understand the reasoning behind them.

I'm interested to see how this particular book compares with other contemporary novels. Is this becoming more of the 'norm', or was this an experiment? How do others view contemporary fiction, and does anyone have some good suggestions for the next book I should pick up? Since I'm just beginning to branch out in my reading, I'm not sure where to start....