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Fiction ChronicleMay 2009 Caveat emptor by Stefan Beck On How to Sell, by Clancy Martin; Lowboy, by John Wray; Sag Harbor, by Colson Whitehead; and How It Ended: New & Collected Stories, by Jay McInerney. “Make it new,” Pound said, but this commandment is quoted far more often than it’s heeded. Why make it new when you can just call it “new and improved”? Who cares that your product is full of sawdust and faulty wiring? The billboard says it’s for those who think young, and so good cats ask for it by name! There’s nothing a little marketing can’t fix. One of the books discussed herein will be promoted with an “Author Viral Video.” Long gone are the days when literature was a talisman against this kind of stupefying influence. It was with a mixture of chagrin and perverse delight that I read the blurbs on a debut novel called, of all things, How to Sell.[1] Jonathan Franzen: “[V]ery hard to stop reading.” Zadie Smith: “A funny, unforgiving novel about how we buy ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 27 May 2009, on page 31 Copyright © 2009 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Caveat-emptor-4080
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by Stefan Beck On The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker; Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Powers; Homer & Langley, by E. L. Doctorow; and Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, by Kazuo Ishiguro. by Stefan Beck On the collected works of John Cheever and Blake Bailey's new biography, Cheever: A Life. by Stefan Beck On All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen, A Mercy by Toni Morrison, Home by Marilynne Robinson, and Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. by Max Watman Reviews of "The View from Castle Rock: Stories," by Alice Munro; "Talk Talk," by T.C. Boyle; and "Special Topics in Calamity Physics," by Marisha Pessl.  The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices 
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