When I got my first job in publishing in New York City, the managing editor offered me the following advice about reading the slush pile for potential new acquisitions: “Imagine you acquire the manuscript and publish the book. Now, can you think of five people you would recommend this book to because you know they would enjoy reading it, and what would you say to get them interested?”
It turns out, coming up with compelling reasons for five people is harder than it sounds. Ever since, this has been one of my benchmarks for judging a book’s worthiness. It reminds me to think about how real readers might respond to a book and the varied reasons that compel them.
Since finishing Tim Winton’s ambitious and surprising new novel Juice, I have found reasons to recommend it to my rock-climbing buddy, a poet, my mother-in-law, a university colleague who teaches creative writing, and a geologist who works in Western Australia’s resources industry.
