In an interview with Salon, Jeffery Eugenides said he is “surprised” that author Jodi Picoult is “belly-aching” over the rift between male and female novelists who often cover the same issues, stating, “I didn’t really know why Jodi Picoult is complaining. She’s a huge best-seller and everyone reads her books, and she doesn’t seem starved for attention.”
He’s referring to a tweet written by Picoult, the author of several New York Times best-selling books about topics such as Asperger’s syndrome and a lesbian couple’s struggle to conceive. She argues that she and Franzen both write about domestic issues, but his books receive critical acclaim due to his gender.
The tweet read, “NYT raved about Franzen’s new book. Is anyone shocked? Would love to see the NYT rave about authors who aren’t white male literary darlings,” and is part of an ongoing debate about the underrepresentation of female writers in major book reviews. Vida, an organization for women in the literary arts, conducts an annual count of authors from each gender reviewed by the most respected book news outlets, and the results are typically grim: Sites like The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic and The New York Times often devote over 75 percent of their coverage to men. Of course, the media may not be the source of the issue, but the fact remains that coverage is not equal.
via The Huffington Post | Full News Feed http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/27/jeffrey-eugenides-jodi-picoult_n_1918942.html
