Archive - September 18, 2013

[This email comes for a New York City RPCV writer. This woman is always in the know!] Dear John, Having not read Norm Rush’s book I don’t know how on target the New York Times review is, but what I do know and have learned over the years is that Michiko Kakutani is a very unreliable reviewer. She lauds books that are totally middle-brow and then savages others that are may be flawed in certain ways, but mostly flawed because the author is reaching for a difficult effect. She also tends to overpraise an author early in his or her career and demolish him or her if she feels they’ve failed her in some way. And I use the reference to “her” advisedly.  It seems to be a deeply personal thing with her. I’ve heard she used to be a groupy following, I think, Paul Simon, in her younger days. . . .

The September 26, 2013, issue of The New York Review of Books has a long review of Subtle Bodies by Norm Rush (Botswana 1978-83 ) written by Francine Prose. Prose goes back over Rush’s literary history, his three novels that are set in Botswana, written in the years after Norm and his wife, Elsa, were co-directors in South Africa and then she focuses on where Rush is today. This novel is not set in Botswana. Published by Knopf this month, Subtle Bodies, takes place in New York’s Hudson Valley where Norm and Elsa have lived since (and before) the Peace Corps in Africa. Unlike Michiko Kakutani’s The New York Times review (September 17, 2013), novelist and critic Francine Prose finds much to appreciate in Norm’s new book. In her review, Prose makes the point that Rush writes novels for adults….”Rush endows his fictional creations with so much intelligence, complexity, and . . .