Weiner Is Wrong About Times Book Review

I had a Twitter conversation a couple of days ago with Jennifer Weiner, who spends a lot time banging her drum about the lack of coverage of commercial fiction in the New York Times Book Review. Fairly or not, Weiner tends to upset people with her tone on this issue and also tends to view people’s upsettedness about her tone as related to her gender, which means that the underlying argument about the critical reception of commercial fiction doesn’t get nearly as much attention as these other matters do, even though it’s a much more interesting subject than whether Weiner is a loudmouth or whether those who think Weiner is a loudmouth would think differently were she a man expressing the same opinions in the same tone. So I wanted to engage her on the issue itself rather than on her tone when discussing the issue, and she kindly encouraged me to do so. I take it for granted that anyone reading this is reasonably up-to-speed on the debate, so I’m not going to drop lots of quotes and links and other contextual pointers. I realize there is a risk that I will mischaracterize Weiner’s argument, and I trust she will correct me if I do. Lastly, I’ll throw in the caveats that I write for the Times Book Review a fair amount and hope to continue doing so and that my own books have been reviewed there and sell many fewer copies than Weiner’s books. Also, this wound up being pretty long.