Sunday’s New York Times Book Review carried a review of two new books by Joseph Epstein – a memoir and a collection of essays. Both were heavily criticized, by a man who clearly has a distaste for Epstein’s writing. And I wondered why, given this fact, he didn’t pass the review on to somebody else. Why let your obvious bias stand as the official word on an author’s work?
Some of the essays in the collection appeared in The American Scholar, which Epstein was editor of for 22 years. The reviewer found them way too long, and chastised Epstein for taking up precious space with them in his own publication. As someone who occasionally published in The American Scholar – pretty much began his career in its pages – I never resented Epstein’s personal essays in the front of the book; I thought they were often the best and most entertaining things in the quarterly. It didn’t hurt that Epstein was the kindest and most gracious editor I had ever come across – writing thoughtful, encouraging, helpful rejections long before I had any success with him.
