Max Jamison

If it wasn't for an old, run down, second-hand bookshop, I probably would never have discovered Max Jamison (The Critic). It's such a pity, because Wilfred Sheed's portrayel of a depressed critic is spot on. With a bit of luck, Max Jamison could well have been Holden Caulfied's father. And with that, a famous novel. But art, like life, isn't fair.

I've bought several copies of this and Sheed's other novels and his collections of criticism for friends over the years, and was astonished and angered to discover that none of his fiction is in print. Sheed is one of the great comic novelists and social satirists of the past century, the equal of Evelyn Waugh--maybe if someone made this or another of his stories into a movie, he would get a similar treatment: the uniform republication of his novels he deserves. Not that there's much competition, but Max Jamison is the best novel ever written about a critic, as well as being an unforgettable, incisive portrait of New York, the theater, marriage, and ambition in the 1960s/70s. Other Sheed novels just as good are The Hack, The Blacking Factory, Office Politics, and the Boys of Winter. What is wrong with Penguin, Vintage, Little Brown, and the other literary imprints that they are ignoring this work? Readers should unite and demand them!