McGurl received his B.A. from Harvard University and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Johns Hopkins University. He has also worked as a journalist for The New York Times and The New York Review of Books.
The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. (Harvard University Press, 2009).
The Novel Art: Elevations of American Fiction after Henry James. (Princeton University Press, 2001).
Articles and essays
" A Response to Elif Batuman's Review of The Program Era in the London Review of Books." Official Website: The Program Era Reviews, October 4/October 10, 2010.