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 written, so I thought I’d explore the process here.

My essay “Frankenstein’s Daughters” in The New Yorker, October 9, 2023.

1. Conception. Take a bow, publicists—the idea for this one came from you. Each week I get hundreds of emails from publicists promoting books they hope to get reviewed. I don’t read all the emails thoroughly, but I do glance at them. Most get deleted, because the publicist is pitching a category I don’t review (cozy Christmas mysteries, to take one recent example) or I’m just not interested. But last spring I noticed that two publicists were simultaneously pitching novels described as queer reimaginings of Frankenstein. As all journalists know, three examples make a trend, and Louisa Hall’s Reproduction, another contemporary feminist take on the novel, had just come out.

2. Timing. The peg is essential to a book review: most newspapers and magazines want to review books right as they come out. That was a small problem for this piece, because one of the books (Reproduction) had already been published and another (C.E. McGill’s Our Hideous Progeny) was about to appear. Fortunately, the third (Anne Eekhout’s Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein) had a fall publication date.

3. Pre-screening. Once I determine that the books qualify for a review—not self-published; pub date within shooting distance; can generate sufficient ideas—I make sure I actually want to write about them. This doesn’t always mean reading the whole book (although Reproduction is short—I read it in one afternoon). I read enough—fifty pages or so—to get a sense for both the story and the style. To write a piece like this, I’m going to spend a lot of time with these books. I don’t need to love every word, but a book has to be interesting enough to merit the time.

4. Pitch. Time to share my thoughts with my editor! I’ve been working with the same editor at The New Yorker since I started (my first piece, very on-brand, was this essay about Bruno Schulz), so initially I don’t send an elaborate pitch—just a paragraph or so telling him what I’m thinking about and asking for his response. If he’s provisionally interested, I’ll send a pitch of two or three paragraphs describing the book(s) in greater detail and fleshing out my ideas.

   Sometimes my editor will suggest a book and ask me to frame it. It’s great to be handed an assignment. But that can also make the process harder, because I have to generate interest in a subject rather than starting from that point.

5. Acceptance. Usually a quick “OK, go ahead,” followed shortly by a formal letter from the magazine’s business side, establishing the deadline, word count, and fee.

6. Research. This stage can last anywhere from a couple of months to a week or so if I’ve got a lot of other commitments or the piece is on an accelerated schedule. I read the book(s) under review, obviously. Then I draw up a plan for whatever material adjacent to them I need to read to have a better grasp on the subject.

   My last piece was pegged to two new books by Peter Handke. I felt I had to consider his work within the context of his apologetics for Slobodan Milosevic, especially because his Nobel Prize had brought new attention to his politics. I read Handke’s book about Serbia and at least a dozen articles about him, both reporting and criticism. I also reread one of his earliest novels, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, about the suicide of his mother, and read for the first time Repetition, often considered to be his best, to try to understand better why so many people love Handke’s work.

   For the Frankenstein piece, I re-read the books and made careful notes on them. I also read a lot of literary criticism written about the novel, from classic pieces by Barbara Johnson and Gayatri Spivak to newer ones focusing on queer interpretations. I also read Romantic Outlaws, Charlotte Gordon’s biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley; parts of Fiona Sampson’s newer book, In Search of Mary Shelley; and Shelley’s last novel, The Last Man. Hall draws upon it in Reproduction, and I thought at first that it too could be a hook for the piece—Penguin is bringing out a new edition next year—but alas, I could not appreciate it. I did this reading over the summer, while waiting for feedback on my book project, a biography of Anne Frank.

   

   Some of the books I used in my research. (Electronic sources not shown!)

   I tend to make A LOT of notes while reading—that’s an important part of my process. My notes files for this 4,000-word piece add up to around 20,000 words.

7. Writing. My deadline was September 4. My plan was to write the whole piece in July, while waiting for my book edits, or failing that, in early August. Ha! I have never in my entire career turned in anything before deadline. Part of the reason is surely the phenomenon that work expands to fill the space you have for it. But also, this was a complicated piece that had to integrate three very different books into a unified argument. It took a good two weeks or so of writing to get there, along with a lot of false starts. I wrote at least three entirely different ledes before settling on A Room of One’s Own as the frame for the piece.

   

8. Editing. Sometimes my editor will do a first pass on the piece himself; more often, he sends it back to me with notes for revision, usually accompanied by a telephone conversation. (We’re both old-fashioned that way.) This one was the latter. I submitted a second draft incorporating his critiques about a week later. (I spent most of that week waiting for him to get back to me.)

9. Final editing and fact-checking—the “close.” A lot of other editors read a piece before it goes into publication. To be honest, I’m not even sure who all of them are! Sometimes I hear from them directly, but usually my editor communicates their questions and changes. I annotate a draft of the piece for the fact-checker—where exactly did I find that fascinating detail that must be included?—and work directly with them on correcting all the errors. Yes, there are always errors, from dates I got wrong to potential misreadings. It’s humbling to be confronted with them.

10. Proofs. The article goes through at least two proofs—pages laid out as they will be in the magazine. Last chance to correct any typos. Now I also see the art (though I have no say in it).

11. Publication. Out in the world! Now I get to hear from readers and sometimes the writer(s) under review as well.

    This piece brought a barrage of criticism about the “wokeification” of literary studies, as I suspected it would. But people have been interpreting and reinterpreting Frankenstein based on the political issues of their moment ever since it first came out. That’s what readers do.

I don’t go through this kind of process with every review, naturally. For a short piece for the Times Book Review, I might only read the book under review, as well as any profiles or other journalism that might be relevant. Maybe one other book by the writer, if it’s someone whose work I don’t already know.¹

What about you? I would love to know more about your writing process. Also happy to answer questions—ask me anything!

In other news

I submitted my Anne Frank revisions to the publisher! Coming fall 2024:

(Note to self: Next time, do not wait till the last possible moment to pull together a six-page bibliography.)

The title is a work in progress. I'm interested in your feedback. Do you love it? Hate it? Have another suggestion?

Where I’ll be

Starting on Tuesday, October 10, I’m guest-hosting a book club with A Public Space Together. We’re reading The Haunting of Hill House. Here’s a snippet from my preview:

My posts will be available via the APS Together newsletter; I’ll also cross-post them in Substack Notes. Join us! The book is short. And brilliant. But you knew that.

As ever,

Ruth

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are considered, by some, to dream.”—Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

1. My first piece for the Times was a review of Wish You Were Here, Stewart O’Nan’s seventh novel. I had never heard of him before. Yes, I did read all six preceding books.