Chick lit gets ignored, unless it gores one of the paper's sacred cows (note to self: don't mess with Anna Wintour!). As it stands, thrillers and mysteries and speculative fiction can get daily reviews, or considered in the NYTBR round-ups.
#JENNIFER WEINER NYTIMES TODAY PLUS#
Usually white guys living in Brooklyn or Manhattan, white guys who either have MFAs or teach at MFA programs.white guys who, I suspect, remind the Times' powers-that-be of themselves, minus twenty years and plus some hair.įinally, I'd love it if the Times actually "celebrated" my genre, but at this point I'd happily settle for the paper merely acknowledging it. However, I think it's irrefutable that when it comes to picking favorites - those lucky few writers who get the double reviews AND the fawning magazine profile AND the back-page essay space AND the op-ed, or the Q and A edited and condensed by Deborah Solomon - the Times tends to pick white guys. I am not, and never would, presume to speak for anyone but myself, and I'm just one woman, even after a hearty lunch of charcuterie and Calvados. Stein got the idea that Jodi Picoult and I were presuming to speak for all women.
He's got a stake - philosophical and financial - in maintaining the Grey Lady's status quo. All of the writers he names, all of the writers he edited at FSG were warmly and often repeatedly reviewed there. None of this was motivated as a critique against him or his work, just that he is someone the Times has chosen to review twice in seven days.īut seriously: of course Lorin Stein has no quarrel with the way the Times does business. I want to make it clear that I have absolutely nothing against Jonathan Franzen. When in today's market you only have a limited review space for books, I wonder what the rationale is for the New York Times to review the same book twice, sometimes in the same week. The Washington Post for example, back when they had their book review section, used to do the widest reviews, because there were so many kinds of fiction reviewed, not just literary fiction.
I think there are a lot of readers who would like to see reviews that belong in the range of commercial fiction rather than making the blanket assumption that all commercial fiction is unworthy. I think the New York Times reviews overall tend to overlook popular fiction, whether you're a man, woman, white, black, purple or pink. I don't think it's overlooked in all venues. Jodi Picoult: I think you only have to really look at the facts.
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