Lucy Ellmann says if you can’t handle her 1,034-page book, you’re probably a baby.
Pretty much anyone should be able to finish Lucy Ellmann’s one-sentence, 1,034-page novel Ducks, Newburyport, the author told the Washington Post, unless you are a baby.
“One English reviewer claimed only 2 percent of people (besides himself) would understand the book,” she said. “My own estimation is that everyone can understand it, give or take a few babies.”
A lot of those babies, as it turns out, are men. She added:
Can I say that I also suspect it would not be such an issue if I were not female? Men can take liberties; a woman writing a long book is considered audacious, if not outrageous. Our novels, like us, are supposed to be petite. So many male reviewers have complained about this book’s size that I fear male upper body strength may not be all it’s cracked up to be. But come on, guys, it’s just a novel, not 7,000 volumes of Wikipedia.
[h/t Washington Post]
