Yay!

Yesterday, the New York Times named Mary Karr's Lit one of the 10 Best Books of 2009! Seeing as I work for her publisher, and recently finished the book, this was an especially exciting announcement.

While perusing the reviews for this year's list, I also stumbled upon Jonathan Lethem's piece on Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs. I haven't read much of either author, but this quote perfectly expresses my own frustration with most September 11 fiction:

"The book is also set in the autumn of 2001, a fact Moore has the patience to barely deploy for 200 pages, and then only with a deft sleight of hand that will make readers reflect on the ways so many other treatments of this (unfinished) passage in American life have resembled heart surgery performed with a croquet mallet."

Well said, Mr. Lethem.