Muse

Vanity. I read so many different sorts of books that when I heard that Farrar, Straus and Giroux publisher Jonathan Galassi had written a novel titled, Muse, I figured it might be a delight. Perhaps there was too much inside baseball for me in a novel about publishing by a publisher and poet. With fewer than three hundred pages, I read it quickly, but never really felt engaged by the prose. Close to the end, I came as close as I ever would to “getting it,” when I read the following: “Their authors were their gods, despite their high-handed behavior, egomania, and competitiveness. In the end, it had been all about them.” (p.234) Having understood that point, I raced to the end, eager to find another author god whose prose would provide me with more pleasure than this novel did. Readers with a strong interest in publishing are those most likely to enjoy reading this novel. Rating: Three-star (It’s ok) Click here to purchase Muse from amazon.com.