The judge, waving the most current issue of The New Yorker, just told me about an author that everyone had worshipped some time ago. Impressed by the popularity of this writer, the judge had picked up one of her books and found it unreadable. He gave up partway through, unable to understand how anyone could voluntarily process that crap. It seems that this issue of The New Yorker contains a review of this same author’s writing, and the critic “just tore her apart.” My judge said to me, eyes sparkling, “He wrote that ‘the novel’s dialogue is never even accidentally plausible.’ ” He laughed as I gasped and laughed. And I thought, “That’s a good one, who can I use that on?” And THEN I thought, “Uh-oh…”