Open Letter’s newest release, The Museum of Eterna’s Novel (The First Good Novel) is reviewed at The Complete Review. Is it well received? Michael Orthofer, one of the most orderly of readers, had this to say:
[Macedonio] Fernández also obsesses about his readers, suggesting the different forms of reading possible here—and of readers, from the ‘window-shopping’-one to ‘the reader who skips around’. He even draws some hypothetical readers into the text itself, turning them into characters. And when he writes: “I’m confident I won’t have a single orderly reader. An orderly reader could bring about my downfall”, it’s also because he has done his best to ensure that The Museum of Eterna’s Novel can (or should) not be read in orderly fashion.
He gave the book a B+.
Unfortunately, I haven’t started the book yet. The Seminary Co-op didn’t even get a copy in before we got our first call for it. I sold my copy to the eager reader and I’m waiting on our delivery now to replace mine so I can get started.
If you want to get a jump on things, you can read the excerpt we published last summer at The Quarterly Conversation. It’s right here.