NYT's picky reviewers

There is an interesting conversation taking place in Paper Cuts, a New York Times blog about books. It's actually in the comments, not in the blog posting itself, so you must scroll down and read them. Jacquelyn Mitchard brought it to attention in her own blog.

It's an important subject if you are a woman writer, published or not. It's not new or earth shattering, but important still. You can go there and read it all for yourself, but here's just a taste of what was said.

Jen (Jennifer Weiner, In Her Shoes?) wrote:
Yes, there are many, many more books than movies, time is short, space is limited, and, by golly, there’s that new biography of Martin Amis (Martin! Amis!) to discuss, but I don’t think a desire to review what’s important and champion obscure works that readers won’t stumble across on their way to work exempts critics from talking about the books that are actually being discussed by readers, even if it’s only via a roundup or a mention.

Stacey Ballis (an author I'm not familiar with) wrote some interesting stuff:
To ignore not only the extraordinary work of people like Jodi Picoult (who managed to debut at #1 on the NYT list, and yet apparently didn’t deserve a review) who has worked for years to build her audience while being largely ignored by critics and reviewers is a travesty. And to ignore on a much greater scale the work of many exicitng new writers who are trying to break out in favor of authors who could publish a list of everything they ate for breakfast this year and sell 50,000 copies their first week means that you are letting down your readers.

Yes, it is important to acknowledge the current work of major writers. But isn’t it equally the responsibility of critics to help the world discover interesting and entertaining work that might be harder to find? The reason you get access to free copies of everything ever published is that you are supposed to glean out the work that deserves notice, even if the author is not already a household name (who likely has a full page ad for the book somewhere in the paper), I daresay ESPECIALLY in those cases.

In today’s publishing market, good authors are being dropped everyday due to sluggish sales. Good books are moving straight from the front table to the bargain bin with nary a backward glance. And god forbid you write largely about or for women, lord help you if you happen to write funny, you are doomed.

Jen asks some very interesting and pointed questions, and the responses seem to be very canned, very ‘party line’.

Frankly, I’d have more respect for a response that simply said “you’re right. we don’t think these genres are legitimate literature, we don’t find the work of women to have the same heft of their male counterparts, and we are more likely to use a book with a pink cover for kindling on a Sunday than to waste space on fluff in our prestigious pages.”

Jacquie Mitchard said:
... when it comes to garnering reviews, my observation is that it does indeed help to be male and important.