An interesting and detailed survey of the publishing industry, but one that I expect will have trouble finding an audience.

With niche books like this, I always ask myself while reading, “who is the audience for this?” If the answer ends up being “I can’t tell” or “I don’t know,” then I don’t think that bodes well for the book. This is well researched and well written enough that I expect many of those who do pick it up will find it intriguing. It’s just that I’m not sure who is intended to pick it up in the first place.

I thought this would have been better presented as a sort of comparison between media industries rather than within the book industry exclusively. Particularly when much of what we get is LitFic vs LitFic.

And there’s just a LOT of Truman Capote, who is both over-discussed in literary criticism and history and also not the counterpoint nonfiction writer needed here, as this era of literary nonfiction was, um, heavily fictionalized. Which I’m sure is not news to Brier. That said, I did appreciate efforts to bring nonfiction into the discussion alongside LitFic, which is where most discussions like this tend to stay.

I rarely stop reading an interesting and well-researched non-fiction book, but here I am, at 69%, finally making up my mind that I'm not really that excited by the topic or the approach.

The thing about "Novel Competition" is that it's very dense. It assumes more than a passing familiarity with the American publishing industry - otherwise you'll spend a long time looking up authors, editors and other important people and companies - but it also sort of assumes a familiarity with the works involved. From Truman Capote to Solzhenitsyn, you'd better know who's who; and you should also know your "In Cold Blood" and "Cancer Ward" while we're at it.

In a sense, the volume is exactly what I wanted to read: a view of the American publishing industry, with information about sales, editorial perspectives, and wider debates that took place in contemporary magazines. Evan Brier goes through Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" and his insistence that it's a "non-fiction novel", not journalism (it's a true crime book, but apparently he considered it too well-written for that label), through Toni Morrison's promotion of black authors (and creating an anthology of non-literary black writing), through Philip Roth's promotion of Eastern European authors at a time when they were persecuted by tyrannical regimes, and through Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" and subsequent fatwa, and (I assume) beyond.

The point of the book, however, isn't that the novel is truly in competition with other media (although it is), but that the novel matters. It's important.

Although... Not all novels. Literary novels.

Except... Not necessarily literary novels, but the status of their authors. Truman Capote wasn't content to have written a good book; he wanted it to be a "novel", because novels were prestigious. Philip Roth seems to regret not being oppressed (the rush of resistance through culture! oh my!). Rushdie wished to be defended not because of free speech, but on the artistic merit of "The Satanic Verses" - he wanted to be a literary novelist.

I was expecting novels to be pitted against movies and other media more; instead, we climb inside the ivory tower of the literary establishment as writers fight one another on tall platforms, competing for dominion over small, yet very important spaces. The atmosphere is rarefied, and it's hard to appreciate what's more important: the politics of oppression? Pure stylistic merit? Is your work good? Is it good enough? Is it deep, and oppressed, is it turning the world upside down?

I appreciate Evan Brier's research and explanations about context. The (slightly more than) half of the book that I've read was detailed and interesting, and worth the effort I've put into reading it. However, in the end, I lost interest in the rarefied atmosphere of the literary USA, and the difficult style and few concessions to readers not in the know persuaded me to put the book down. Perhaps I'll come back to it at a later date, if I suddenly gain interest in the topic - it seems like solid scholarship.

As we skid into the first quarter of the 21st century, reading seems to have regained its foothold in the modern psyche. This book engages with the struggle of literature and the publishing world to maintain its niche in the face of mass media and television in particular. Well-researched and engaging, this was wonderful.