Umm.... good question.
I like Lynn Sloan.
And I guess... Jaimey Gordon and... maybe Pam Houston.
Dunno why I only thought of women.
There was a male writer I read recently... something about "We don't live here anymore." Was made into a film. 70s, but kind of what you describe in terms of love-hate couple stuff... though not very edgy-feeling.

"what's at the edge of writing today? We can write about sex openly but who describes the subconscious dynamics, the darkness of love? Lawrence was really exploring new territory both in his style of writing and his subject matter. Who is doing that now? What writers are currently pushing the edges not only of literature but of our understanding of ourselves?"

Reading this paragraph, I immediately thought of two French authors, Annie Ernaux and Marie Darrieussecq; very different in style and tone from each other and from Lawrence, both women are ruthless and courageous in their examination of those hidden, rough-edged, bleeding places that lie along the boundaries of even the most loving and harmonious relationships.

If you enjoy reading plays, I recommend the work of young Irish playwright, Marina Carr. Her mature work (especially 'The Mai' and the great, Medea-inspired, 'By the Bog of Cats') is lyrical and poetic, informed by Irish folklore and Greek myth (with much of the tragic power of the latter), yet deals almost exclusively with complex contemporary relationships; the fluctuations of love and hate, passion and disinterest, intimacy and rejection between not just men and women, but also among the members of extended families and networks of long-time friends. Beautiful, engrossing drama that's almost as effective on the page as it is in the theater.

Wow. These are all exciting possibilities. I wasn't really thinking of edgy in the sense of exploring the boundaries of violence and sexuality that are permissable in current society. (Or at least permissable to publish). I was thinking more along the lines of... the edge of our understanding? Or of what has been articulated in our written remembrance? Does this make any sense? I never "studied" lit, do any of you have a sense that in literature there is an "edge of consciousness"? That we are, collectively evolving, or expressing our collective evolution through literature?

When I read Hemingway, Woolf, Lawrence, Faulkner, Kerouac, etc. I really sense a kind of grapling after something: the ever illusive awareness. But I don't see that so much in the current generation of writers, are they just reluctant to grapple with the "big" issues? Or have I just missed out?