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A review by bethreadsandnaps
Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature by Dan Sinykin
3.0
I was excited to read this since I'm a huge reader of contemporary fiction and would like to know how we got to this point in publishing.
Unfortunately, this felt like a pile of research notes that focused heavily on publishing players from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and rarely moved beyond that. For instance, the author has a fascination with Doctorow's RAGTIME. I have never even heard of this book, but apparently it was extremely pivotal in publishing with its high advance. Sure, it's worthy of a line or even a few in this compendium, but does is it worthy of as much space as it got?
This reads like Mad Men for publishing. It was misogynistic (a woman PhD only being a typist!) and racist.
I like the Conclusion because it focuses on 2000 through now. I would have preferred a chapter or two on each decade, but instead we are so stuck in that 1950s-70s era that I have no points of reference for that all those chapters almost felt meaningless to me.
Jason Epstein, for example, was talked about a lot, but the reader is never really introduced to him in a way that makes the reader care.
Unfortunately, this felt like a pile of research notes that focused heavily on publishing players from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and rarely moved beyond that. For instance, the author has a fascination with Doctorow's RAGTIME. I have never even heard of this book, but apparently it was extremely pivotal in publishing with its high advance. Sure, it's worthy of a line or even a few in this compendium, but does is it worthy of as much space as it got?
This reads like Mad Men for publishing. It was misogynistic (a woman PhD only being a typist!) and racist.
I like the Conclusion because it focuses on 2000 through now. I would have preferred a chapter or two on each decade, but instead we are so stuck in that 1950s-70s era that I have no points of reference for that all those chapters almost felt meaningless to me.
Jason Epstein, for example, was talked about a lot, but the reader is never really introduced to him in a way that makes the reader care.