The other day I wrote about whether or not bloggers should accept review copies.  You said, “No.”

When one reviews for a print publication, an editor deals with the publicists and doles out the books to reviewers.  That makes it easier in some ways.

But I occasionally accept review copies, and don’t have a problem saying what I think at my blog.

The truth of the matter is that I read mainly my own books.

But let me explain.  Jonathan Lethem is my favorite American writer.   I recently read “The Grey Goose,” his story in the New Yorker, which seems to be an excerpt from his new novel, Dissident Gardens.

And so I requested the novel from the publisher.

I was rejected.

Moi?

I was surprised.

So here is the next step.  Get a name.  Yes, I will get a name of a publicist at Doubleday.  I will email that publicist.  I will explain that Lethem is my favorite writer.  I have already written this year about Lethem here and here.

And what if the publicist says no?

Then I’ll send snail mail.

No, I think that would be way too annoying.

The next step is to get an assignment to review it.  There must be some small free publication that could use a review of Dissident Gardens.

The next step is to give up and BUY the book.

I will be the first one at the bookstore to buy Dissident Gardens on Sept. 10 (the publication date).

And here is an excerpt from the description of the novel from Amazon

At the center of Jonathan Lethem’s superb new novel stand two extraordinary women. Rose Zimmer, the aptly nicknamed Red Queen of Sunnyside, Queens, is an unreconstructed Communist and mercurial tyrant who terrorizes her neighborhood and her family with the ferocity of her personality and the absolutism of her beliefs. Her brilliant and willful daughter, Miriam, is equally passionate in her activism, but flees Rose’s suffocating influence and embraces the Age of Aquarius counterculture of Greenwich Village.

MEMORIAL DAY BREAKUP.  Perhaps you remember my talking about my cousin, the librarian who drinks and loves Twitter.

Memorial Day is not her favorite day.

She broke up with her boyfriend.

It is not a great thing to break up with one’s boyfriend any time. I was stupefied during my divorce–I rode the same bus as my ex- on the way home after the finalization of the divorce in court, and was in tears for a year–and I attended all social events for months afterwards because I didn’t want to be alone.

On Memorial Day you go to the family party because you are sad and desperate.

“Is there drink?”

That’s the first thing on her mind.

There was a lot of wine.  I don’t drink, so I can’t say what wine it was.  It was picnic wine.  You know:  there you are at the park, barbecueing your chicken forever, and you have pretty much caught up with everybody, the aunts, the siblings, and then suddenly you’re drinking wine.

We took a walk to the store down the road, and she explained about her boyfriend.  He  kept getting phone calls at her apartment.  Eventually  she looked at his phone and read the texts.

I really am very sorry for her.  I don’t have a cell phone, and have never seen a text, but I imagine it’s much like other e-things.

iPhone, e-mail.  We all spend too much time on the “e.”

There’s nothing worse than a break-up, but my cousin is youngish and pretty, and she’ll find someone else.

She’ll have to play volleyball, go to dinners,  and the Sierra Club meetings.

It is very hard to meet men, even in one’s thirties.

God help her, she deserves better.