Jodi Picoult, a successful author of commercial fiction about “family, relationships, and love,” is tired of the Times‘ love affair with the white, male, literary lion. Picoult first spoke out on Twitter, following Michiko Kakutani’s glowing review of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, tweeting, “NYT raved about Franzen’s new book. Is anyone shocked?” This prompted NYT nemesis NYTPicker to get in touch with Picoult and she elaborated:
“It is my personal opinion that yes, the Times favors white male authors.,” Picoult told The NYTPicker. “That isn’t to say someone else might get a good review — only that if you are white and male and living in Brooklyn you have better odds, or so it seems.”
NYTPicker went on to claim that Picoult “made it plain that her sensitivities derive from her own feelings of mistreatment by the NYT,” but Picoult later refuted this. Addressing “those who actually care,” Picoult posted the text of her email response to NYTPicker and said that in the interest of “truth in journalism” she wanted to point out that “nowhere in here do I criticize Ms. Kakutani, rant, or suggest that my comment (which really was just that -a COMMENT) was precipitated by the fact that I don’t get rave reviews from the NYT.” She was simply stating her opinion, wrote Picoult, “about those to whom the NYT chooses to devote inches of print!”
Picoult later added a coda, again via Twitter: “No sour grapes. I don’t care if the NYT does or doesn’t review me – but I’d love to see some new, unnoticed writers be lauded.”
[Guardian]
