Extraordinary interview with Erica Jong in last Saturday`s Times. According to Jong a lot of the 'bad boy' writers who gave her books bad reviews had more than literary criteria on their minds. "I was too zaftig [curvy] to get a good review. Look at all the women who are praised. They`re either very, very skinny or very, very fat. Some of them are hunchback, and some of them enormously fat" - offensive remark about Hilary Mantel omitted [LOLZ] - "Not one of them is a woman you would want to f***."
Some years ago I gave Jong`s Sappho`s Leap a very bad review in the TLS. At the time I thought I did this because it was a very bad book. Now I know differently.
Glad she cleared all that up.- Harry Sidebottom, on Facebook
In other news, I've just looked up a boozy interview I did with Dr Sidebottom. 1) I note Ms Jong was referenced; and 2) I can vouch his books have since also made it to Afghanistan.
