Press & Reviews
Below, in reverse chronological order, are links to what some people have said about Maynard & Jennica:Today, in The New York Times Book Review, Thomas Beller writes: "By the end of the book I was wallowing in a state of pleasure but also suspicion -- suspicious because much of the novel is just so damn cute. But looking through its pages again I found one tiny comic gem after another, one pitch-perfect rendering of the modern moment after another. Delson brings a Nicholson Baker-like degree of precision to his descriptions; the book is always alive. I felt the odd elation that occurs when you read fiction that not only confirms your sense of the modern world but enlarges it."
(By way of thanks, let me say that you can visit Mr. Beller here.)
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Wenn Sie Deutsch lesen können, besuchen Sie bitte diese Webpage, wo ich die Meinungen der Deutschen Kritiker gesammelt habe.
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Rumors reached me from Germany today that there is a review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, and here in Brooklyn the word is that next Sunday there will be a review in the New York Times. But what I have for you today are these: (1) Image Magazine has selected Maynard & Jennica as a Book of the Month, writing: "One of the most charming, funny love stories youÕll have come across in a long time. Told in a seductive between-you-and-me style by 35 different narrators, this is a hymn not only to unlikely relationships everywhere but to New York itself;" and (2) in Scotland on Sunday Nicola Barr writes: "Maynard and Jennica works brilliantly as a love story - and the description of their falling is so perfect, true, adorable, unique and familiar that reading it feels almost intrusive. But Delson, in his first novel, has done something much more ambitious than a fuzzy rom-com."
(And, it's true, "Rom-Com" doesn't figure; see pages 146-47.)
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Here are links to reviews appearing in: The Boston Globe, The Observer; and Varsity. Again, I haven't read them, so they may be terrible. I do however know that The Jewish Chronicle called Maynard & Jennica "a terrific, joyous new novel [by] an exciting new talent," and that down in Pensacola, Florida, In Weekly said of the book, "even the most jaded urban hipsters will find something to love in it," (a pull-quote that normally would make me despair, but ... jaded urban hipsters? ... Pensacola, Florida?)
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If you go to the website of The Willow Glen Resident and search under my name, you can see a profile of me that appeared there in mid-October. The Resident is the neighborhood paper for the section of San Jose, California where I grew up. (Among other things, the profile includes quotes from ... my mother and my father.)
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Among other very generous things, in the "Books Briefly Noted" section of its October 1st issue, The New Yorker calls Maynard & Jennica a "remarkable début."
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One difficulty of not reading my own reviews is that, unless my publishers provide me with pull-quotes, I can't summarize for you, the reader of this webpage, what the reviews of Maynard & Jennica say. So I have no idea whether the following links lead to good reviews or bad. Still, here's what appeared in: Metro; The Financial Times; The Daily Mail; and The New Statesman. Also, here is an interview with me byThe Book Depository.
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So, I was interviewed by Sara Davis, a journalist from the student newspaper at Columbia University, The Spectator. Note how dogged she is on the subject of beverages.
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Let's see here: The Observer; The Guardian; Elle and Marie-Claire (via a poorly cropped .pdf); The Seattle Post-Intelligencer; The Portland Mercury; and I think that's it. I realize that I've established the pattern of pre-digesting these links, selecting the most complimentary quotes and presenting those for you on this page, but today I am feeling lazy. Forgive me.
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"This novel was an immediate and unalloyed delight. Romantic, idiosyncratic, clever ... graceful and delicate." Shelf Awareness.
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On September 21st, I was a guest on the radio show hosted by one of my long-time airwave idols, Bronwyn C. You can listen to WFMU's archive of the show here.
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So, the recap the week of September 18th: In Britain, there was this little write-up from Urban Junkies, and in America, there was this friendly profile by USA Today. On Friday, Daily Candy said, among other nice things, that Maynard & Jennica is "A good little book." Or, not so little, as you can witness here, via YouTube.
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Three things, four days before publication: (a) a short piece in Waterstone's (.tiff); (b) an interview with me in Brooklyn Rail, including my joke about the Jesus Christ diet; and (c) a few more words from New York Magazine.
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"Boldly inventive ... this work has something fresh that needs to be embraced and will resonate with a wide audience." Library Journal
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Do you fully expect to hate Maynard & Jennica? Well, I applaud your skepticism. Still, allow me to direct you to this testimonial, from the friendly folks at SMITH.
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"In the hands of first-time novelist Rudolph Delson, this story—written retrospectively through a series of first-person interviews—is deliciously, thankfully unpredictable." GO Magazine
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"The excursion (and discursions) on the way to the inevitable crash are highly entertaining, as these two, complex and vivid characters attempt to negotiate the rocky shoals of love while half the Western world looks on ... and comments." BookPage
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"Delson's clever debut is sharp and energetic, a highly original contemporary love story set against New York's invigorating urban landscape." Booklist
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For the subscribing elite, here is an interview I had the chance to do with the good folks at Women's Wear Daily .
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Here is something in German, for those of you who read German: a .pdf of a piece in Buecher Magazine. And, for those of you who like Fimo clay: Maynard and a nameless kitten.
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More from the trade press: an interview with me that ran in Ingram's Advance Magazine, presented here in the convenient form of a .pdf file; and, should you like one, a link to a short thingee about Maynard & Jennica in Publisher's Weekly.
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The Park Slope Reader doesn't publish its book reviews online, but if you happen to live in Park Slope, flip to page 100 of the Summer 2007 issue. Says the Reader's reviewer of Maynard & Jennica: "If P.G. Wodehouse were a millennial New Yorker, he might have written something like this. From the first page of this book, I wanted to shout Wheee!" (Of course the reviewer is the Catherine Bohne, the owner of the Community Bookstore on Seventh Avenue, a woman who shouts Wheee! frequently, and sometimes for no good reason.) (And, so long as I am relaying Brooklyn-specific press, there is this, from the good folks at Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn.)
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Lauren Grodstein, the author of Reproduction is the Flaw of Love, says: "Maynard and Jennica—expansive, witty, and utterly charming—is a boy-meets-girl tale for the ages. It also happens to paint one of the sharpest literary portraits of New York City I've read in years. This is a love story that soars, and folds an entire city under its wings."
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Mohsin Hamid, the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, says: "Maynard & Jennica is courageously hilarious and intimately human. Rudolph Delson is one of the most exciting new writers I have come across in a long time, and this book is the reason we should all read first novels. "
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In the trade press, Publishing News caught wind of the amazing Maynard & Jennica Fimo dioramas and ran this great little story (.pdf), and Publishers Weekly printed its write-up, saying, inter alia: "Delson's prose shimmers when describing the magic and romance of falling in love in New York."
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Adam Langer, the author of Crossing California and The Washington Story, says: "A charming comic novel but also an exuberant one-man show, Delson's warm-hearted debut offers a vision of New York that manages to be both contemporary and timeless. "
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In Edinburgh, Scotland, a bookseller named Hélène writes a blog named H5L5N5. And, in the least expected and most flattering response to Maynard & Jennica yet, Hélène has created, with sculpey clay, dioramas of: Maynard and Jennica meeting for the first time; Ana Kaganova stealing a taxi; Joan Tate getting drunk on Bloody Marys while waiting for her son; Maynard, in the lobby of a law firm, the day he sells the rights to his film; and more. People, visit H5L5N5, immédiatement!
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I once met Gersh Kuntzman, the editor of The Brooklyn Paper. It was years ago, at the Park Slope Food Coop. He was working at the check-out register, and he bruised my bananas. I am certain however that he doesn't remember me, and that you can trust the objectivity of The Brooklyn Paper when it recommends Maynard & Jennica as an end-of-summer read. Besides, Gersh is great. Who but Gersh could put a bikini shot into the book review section of a free neighborhood weekly? Perhaps you, Boris Kachka?
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This isn't a review, but it would be a shame not to share it. Because, how slow of a day for gossip must May 12th have been, that this made Page Six?
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If you click here, and then click on the image of the cover of Maynard & Jennica, you can listen to Jack Fogg talk about the book in his "plumy English drawl." (Jack Fogg and Nick Pearson are the fellows in charge of my book over at 4th Estate.) Or, if you are a reader of Granta and saw their "young American novelists" issue, consider reading this flabbergasting assessment.
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Andrew Sean Greer, who wrote The Confessions of Max Tivoli, had these kind words: "Nothing this funny, erudite and moving has come along in ages. Delson is a true talent, generous with his characters and lovingly describing the world they inhabit. Here is a novel with invention and energy on every page."
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In September of 2006, Publishers Weekly published this efficient notice.
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Here endeth the buzz. If you are a member of the press, or a bookseller, or somesuch, please feel free to contact Houghton Mifflin in New York for more information about the book.