Our Subtle Literary Influence Continues

By Neal 

In the summer of 2007, we recommended that the NY Times Book Review should start taking romance novels seriously, and we nominated Eloisa James for the job, believing that the prolific novelist would be as insightful a reviewer, if not more so, than most people the Review actually hires. Well, last summer, Barnes & Noble hired James to write reviews for their website, and she’s been writing regularly for them since.

ward-sutton-headshot.jpgWe mention this by way of prelude, then call your attention to three months ago, when we interviewed Ward Sutton on the occasion of the cartoonist’s review of Philip Roth‘s Indignation for the Village Voice. “I would welcome any assignment that involves reading, especially something as great as Indignation was,” Sutton told us at the time. “I think that a cartoon review might attract people to reading something about a book in a way that a written review might not. I don’t believe that the cartoon form poses any threat to the art form of book reviews—if anything it’s a creative expansion of the form.”

Apparently Barnes & Noble agreed, because they’ve hired Sutton as a regular reviewer, beginning with T.C. Boyle‘s The Women. We are given to understand that he’ll be turning to a nonfiction work for his next review, which should appear on BN.com in March. We’ll keep an eye out for it… and then we’ll think very carefully about the next emerging book reviewer we might wind up sending their way. Spooky, isn’t it?