New York Times Nonsense, Part II

posted by Pearl Abraham

There is something very neurotic going on at the NYT Book Announcer (a.k.a. the NYTB Review), whose editor determines first not to review much fiction, and this in the face of predictions of doom for fiction, then reviews only fiction by writers who are already widely known, and this week decides to publish an essay titled “Publish and Perish,” by Elizabeth Royte, that jeers at the lives of these very writers whom they have ignored. How is it that after having a hand in the perishing of these books, the Book Announcer gets to, parasitically, still live off them by writing about the results of their policy? Could it be that all this is part of a plan to generate controversy on behalf of the NYTBA, in other words, as advised by their publicist, in order to gain readers? They’ve done it before, about a year ago, with the gratuitous Wendy Shalit essay on Jewish writing.

And then, strangely, some of the facts in this Royte essay aren’t entirely based in fact. Honest publicists don’t usually take on novels that are already published, but require at least a 6-month lead. And, as it happens, it is often publishers who employ these outside publicists. And so on.

24 October 2005 | theory |

Look, Michiko, Just Write a Damn Novel Already

When NYT book reviewer Michiko Kakutani took on the voice of Holden Caufield two months ago to review Benjamin Kunkel’s Indecision, we all sort of shook our heads politely. After all, longtime readers knew it was an intermittently recurring tic of hers—remember the time she pretended to be Ally McBeal reviewing Bridget Jones?—and we just figured, okay, it’s out of her system for another year or so.

But, no: It’s only been two months, and she’s channeling Holly Golightly to review Truman Capote’s resurrected Summer Morning. Readers who dare follow this link will be forgiven the urge to claw out their own eyes in horror.

24 October 2005 | theory |