Since I read a great deal, I'm always on the hunt for new books to add to my list of things to read. There's book reviews to give a few suggestions, but there's nothing better than being able to read the opening pages and get a feel for the prose.
This week's offering from the St. Martin's Press Read-It-First program won't be making the list.
When you're an editor with Vanity Fair, chances are that you know people who know people in the publishing world. You're in a better position to get a literary agent, or possibly in the right spot to hand the manuscript over to an editor friend and get a contract for publication.
Laura Jacobs' second novel, The Bird Catcher, is set in Manhattan, like most every other novel you may have run across. The tale opens with a long paragraph of description that encompasses stones shifting, the protagonist's hair and the students at Columbia. From there, the story shifts to a description of a wall that's all full of touchy-feely New Age images, and after that, it's a question of skimming through the rest of the sample in search of something interesting.
What's there? More description, of Riverside Park and overgrown paths, the protagonist's inner thoughts and dull ponderings.
And then it comes to the end.
Maybe it will get better in the next segment. Or maybe I'll be deleting the upcoming e-mails while grumbling about the lack of decent writing that's coming out of the big publishing houses.
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