{"id":5,"date":"2006-01-04T08:53:07","date_gmt":"2006-01-04T13:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/?p=5"},"modified":"2019-12-26T13:28:48","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T18:28:48","slug":"novels-an-exercise-in-subjective-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/novels-an-exercise-in-subjective-judgment\/","title":{"rendered":"Novels: an exercise in subjective judgment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s Publisher’s Lunch <\/em>reported on a bit of gotcha journalism by the London Times<\/em>, “one of those periodic ambush articles”<\/p>\n

in which the reporters make themselves feel wonderfully superior by submitting two Booker-winning novels from the 70s anonymously to 20 publishers and agents. (One is VS Naipaul’s IN A FREE STATE; the other is Stanley Middleton’s A FREE STATE.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Surprise, surprise, none of the publishers offered the anonymous submitters a $1 million advance.<\/p>\n

Publishers toss Booker winners into the reject pile.<\/p>\n

What would be really interesting, though, would be to resubmit a couple of novels that didn’t quite make the Booker Prize grade and see if they could land a deal.<\/p>\n

Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth had a nice run in the late 1800’s. How about submitting For Women’s Love<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Rothsay left the talkative hackman and passed on. [ed. No, Mrs. S. didn’t mean to suggest he died.]<\/em><\/p>\n

A hand touched him on the arm.<\/p>\n

He turned and saw old Scythia, clothed in a long, black coat of some thin stuff, with its hood drawn over her head.<\/p>\n

Rothsay stared.<\/p>\n

“Come, Rule! You have tested woman’s love to-day, and found it fail you; even as I tested man’s faith in the long ago, and found it wrong me! Come, Rule! You and I have had enough of falsehood and treachery! Let us shake the dust of civilization off our shoes! Come, Rule!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s Publisher’s Lunch reported on a bit of gotcha journalism by the London Times, “one of those periodic ambush articles” in which the reporters make themselves feel wonderfully superior by submitting two Booker-winning novels from the 70s anonymously to 20 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[384,250,241],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-writing","tag-books","tag-novels","tag-writing-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4922,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/4922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}