Cynthia Ozick has a new collection of short stories — or at least a novella accompanied by three stories, so a quartet of stories would be more accurate. “Dictation” came out in mid-March, but we’ve not seen the type of coverage I’d expect, except for the faithful Complete Review and some coverage given by Bookforum. Also, a recent review by The Washington Post has an accompanying (very brief!) “slideshow” that shows despite Ozick’s recent 80th birthday, she seems to still have vitality.
Most of the reviews so far have been complementary, but I was disappointed when I was in a Borders and asked, just out of curiosity, if they had the new Ozick. “Ozick with a S or with a Z?” the clerk asked me. Ugh. I guess I should have been happy that the clerk knew how to spell Cynthia. And then I was informed Borders wasn’t going to be carrying that title. What? Because she’s old? Because it’s a collection of short stories? Or because you’re going out of business and therefore only want to sell tawdry mass-markets with high volume and sizable profit margins? Case in point: this is why we should support independent bookstores.
3 comments
Au contraire, Mr. Fox. I’m on the case, I assure you.
As you always are, Ed, as you always are.
Wow, that’s just sad. You’ll be happy to know that Ozick’s new book is well represented in my store at least. Plus there’s a nice review in this Sunday’s NYTBR.