Nov 18 2009
∞
“ The Lipsyte passage, I gather, isn’t for everyone. The book, brilliant though it is, demands something from the reader. It offers, in my opinion, a little more resistance than the Didion. It’s not that Lipsyte’s novel is confusing or even difficult, really, but some of those sentences get a little sticky, and I wonder if this stickiness is what has prevented him from blowing up into the enormously popular writer I think he ought to be. In the past two weeks, I’ve laughed so hard while reading this book on the Metro that five people have moved to other seats to avoid being near me. That’s how great of a writer he is, and yet, his sales, from what I can tell, don’t yet match his talent. Either the marketing departments of his publishers are failing him or his style doesn’t attract that many people. Maybe when folks pick up a Lipsyte book, that first paragraph doesn’t just leap off the page at them. They might enjoy the book if they gave it some time, but come on, who gives anything time anymore?
