Comments on: Pulitzer Prize Reality Check #2: 2007 Fiction Finalist, Alice McDermott’s ‘After This’ (Books I Didn’t Finish)

By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom

1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:25:21 +0000

I have no problem with dissuading readers from picking up a book for themselves. Most of the books in the "Books I Didn't Finish" series (including the Diaz and McDermott novels you mentioned) have received oceanic hype elsewhere, often written by people who have not read any of them but who have, for example, simply read a review or gone to a book party. I, at least, am giving these books a fair chance and telling readers what is actually in the book (as opposed to what I've "heard"), based on what I've read.

By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom

1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:03:11 +0000

I agree that length of a sentence has nothing to do with whether it is a run-sentence (and that the Updike sentence you quoted is not a run-on and that some of his longer sentences are brilliant).

But I don’t feel I’m “betraying” anybody by not finishing a book. It would be different if the headline didn’t make clear I had failed to finish a book and I ambushed you with that fact after you’d read the review. But when I don’t finish a book, I always say so in the headline to give you a choice to skip it.

If I stuck with some books by big-name authors like McDermott, I might be betraying less well-known authors who need the attention more (by taking time away from their books).

By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom

1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:46:45 +0000

“Running out of gas” was my thought, too. McDermott is at least a couple of decades younger than Roth and Mailer. But she’s written six novels on related themes, and that would be a lot for anybody. Even Mailer tried to mix it up more in his career by writing not just novels but the highly stylized reporting he did for “Armies of the Night.” I think that McDermott has to play her cards more carefully if she wants to avoid losing readers. Won’t it be interesting to see what she does next?

By: P

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:54:14 +0000

McDermott sounds like she’s running out of gas! I read a critique a while back by Sven Birkerts. It’s about the old timers running out of gas. (Google ‘Roth, Mailer, Bellow Running out of Gas’) Although they are great writers, I had to agree with the critique.

I don’t think she’s in that age category just yet…but it sounds like she needs to fill her creative well somewhere else. And those run on sentences …they are tiring…it’s as if I just heard *another* ‘The geese where flying like a V’ metaphor. It was cool once…but now it’s old and tired.

It’s time to stop and find another viewpoint. She needs something to earn the readership again.