A plea for some information, folks, especially from other magazine editors.
A month back I received a book (and appalling it is) for review from Chatto
- Ruth Padel's <Rembrandt Would Have Loved You>. This is the first time
that one of the big mainstream publishers has ever seen fit to send me
anything for review, and they obvioulsy do not realise what kind of work
Shearsman focuses on, or that, at the time they sent the book, I was not
carrying reviews of any kind. (Matters changed with the last issue.)
I've since received a mailshot from Cape, like Chatto part of the Random
House stable, asking if I'd be interested in continuing (eh?) to receive
books for review from them and enclosing flyers for 6 poets I've not heard
of. I'm intrigued. Is anyone else out there getting mailshots like this or
strange books for review?
I have to say that my reaction to the Padel book is a bit like Forward's
would be to Prynne's Not-You, made worse by the fact that the writer has
been cursed by a blurb from Paul Durcan that says: "If Wallace Stevens and
Anna Akhmatova were one and the same person, you'd have Ruth Padel." I
could go on at length about that, but it wouldn't be fair.
I'm afraid I shall have to reveal the horrible truth to the Random House
people, which is that Cape hasn't been the same since Tarn left, the Cape
Editions were cancelled and John Wieners' Selected came out.
I'm intrigued though - do tell, anyone with simlar stories.
Tony
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