A perfect example of what it says it’s not, in today’s N.Y. Times Sunday Book Review: Ron Powers’ review of Dale Peck’s Garden of Lost and Found is revenge criticism. Quotes taken out of context à la Mitt Romney, and a review that’s 1/2 devoted to other work; a refusal to accept the book’s premise (the melding of fantasy and reality, which is after all a possible definition of literary fiction) … its tone more appropriate to someone slamming Mein Kampf: you can feel the critic looking over his shoulder at Peck, saying “look at me, I can do that too!” But what about the novel at the heart of the review? It deserves better.

— John