Dark Horse Reception
For the winner of one of the country’s major book awards, Jaimy Gordon’s Lord of Misrule has received remarkably little attention. Remedying that a bit, Janet Maslin reviews it in today’s New York Times, following the Washington Post review by Jane Smiley, and those in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and The Daily Racing Form.
The latter publication is the only one (with the exception of the prepub review media; Booklist gave it a star and Kirkus called it “an engagaing read”) that is completely enthusiastic about the book. Maslin, too, is drawn by the writing and the characters, but finds the Lord of Misrule to be, “more of a short-story cycle than a full-fledged novel.”
A few libraries have received their initial orders, but most are still waiting for copies (the book’s publisher, McPherson, is very small. As Maslin says, it’s “a company with a post office box for a mailing address.”)
Holds, while greater than the number of copies in libraries, still lag significantly behind the Booker Prize winner, The Finkler Question.
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