Rejection

 Kudos to The New York Times Book Review for all the first novels reviewed in last Sunday's issue, but it's not only the willingness to hear new voices that's praiseworthy. Many of these books reviewed appear to be wonderfully negative and gratuitous. The Scaffolding by Lauren Elgin "traces the multiple infidelities of two Parisian couples a generation apart." Transition by Angela Lashbrook concerns "a woman..haunted by change while grappling with the death of a friend." However, the piece de resistance is Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte," about which the reviewer of the book, Dwight Garner, who is also a Times staff member remarks, "I read Rejection during a week when I felt down, and it almost snubbed me out, like a cigarette. If it were an Instagram friend, I would have unfollowed it." In one fell swoop Garner has redefined the meaning of what it means to write the kind of review that writers and publishers crave. "Rejection" is, indeed, a fertile theme that is too often passed over by editors who think the submission they are reading is a self-fulfilling prophecy, or roman a clef to be. As of today Rejection is #3796 on Amazon which is a pretty damned good!

read "Ultimate Rejection!"by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Land of a Thousand Dances" by Wilson Pickett