SOURCE: Malone, Michael. “… And Ladies of the G.O.P.” Nation 129 (21-28 July 1984): 52-4.

In the following essay, Malone takes a jaundiced view of “… And Ladies of the Club,” asserting that it is graceless and of dubious literary quality.

Properly publicized, nothing succeeds like failure, particularly when its hucksters belong to the industry that inflicted the initial wound. Hollywood, for example, adores films excoriating its powerful heartlessness and takes sentimental satisfaction in rewarding its own victims: Ingrid Bergman wins an Oscar for having been ostracized by those who give Oscars. Publishing is no different: it fervently gloats over how many times it turned down William Kennedy's Ironweed before wreathing the book in loot and laurel. An even noisier lemming rush chased John Kennedy O'Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. Eleven years after its young author, depressed by innumerable rejections of his novel, committed suicide, his mother persuaded Walker Percy...