When the
Los Angeles Timesasked Blake Bailey what he thought about Laura Marsh’s review of his Philip Roth biography in
The New Republic, he replied, “That was harsh. I mean, wow.” He had a heavier hitter on his side, anyway: “David Remnick of
The
New Yorker says that I’m ‘uncowed,’ that I let the repellent in, that I present an extremely flawed man,” he said. “And if you weigh the reviews so far, most are on the David Remnick side.”
Bailey casually name-dropped the editor of
The New Yorker with the confidence of a man who knows the system backs him. Until this week, he wasn’t wrong: When