How the literary sausage gets made

The anatomy of a New Yorker book review, from idea to finished product.

Dear friends,

I’ve been writing for The New Yorker now for more than twenty years. Even so, it makes me nervous to talk about things I’m working on before they’re published, just in case the universe decides to take me down a peg and they fall through. But now that my latest piece is out, I know some of you are curious about how an essay like this gets w…