This past New York Times Sunday Styles features a short profile of Keith Gessen , a founding editor of the smack-talking, irony-free literary journal n+1 and first-time author of much praised, and much maligned, novel All the Sad Young Literary Men. Gessen plays touch football with fellow Brooklyn hipsters (and even a bond trader unaware of his teammate’s lit-world renown), tells writer Dave Itzkoff that aspiring writers have to live in poverty ($20,000 a year—poverty by Manhattan standards) and generally defends his notorious criticism of Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, the New Republic and The Believer even as he fields critiques of his own debut. The blogosphere predictably has some things to say.
A long and thoughtful diatribe at fiction circus criticizes Gessen’s narrow view of highbrow literature: its commercial prospects, its audience and its raison d’etre.
Similarly ticked off Karen Vanuska wonders why the Sunday Styles section even exists, and why it ran a profile of Gessen after the Times panned his book a couple weeks ago.
With admirable brevity and economy, another blogger asks—and answers—the following question: "Is Keith Gessen an overprivileged Harvard grad?"
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