“When it comes to literary fiction, there seems to be almost no relationship between the novels that summon advances in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars and the ones that become wildly successful.”
“Weiner’s point is more about the deep disdain of authors for female readers than female writers: “you, dear (female) reader, are ultimately the object of the Goldfinchers’ ire. The books you’ve insisted on making popular are bad.” Since female readers en masse rarely embrace the darlings of the New York Review of Books, Weiner observes, their taste must be suspect—and anything they do embrace must therefore be tainted.”