Praise for On Writing and Failure
The Canadian novelist and essayist describes the defining role rejection has played in his career and reflects on its importance in the lives of notable writers, from Ovid to Dostoyevsky and Baldwin.
-New York Times
I want to buy up a big lot of Marche's contribution and hand them out to anyone struggling to write
-Vanity Fair
[Marche's] writing style is buoyant and funny. [...] When the stars are aligned, someone writes a work as provocative, informed and droll as On Writing and Failure.
-Maureen Corrigan, NPR
In On Writing and Failure, Marche attempts to reset the way we talk about such struggles. He stomps Freytag's Pyramid flat. [...] Marche's book isn't a pep talk, but it's not intended to cut you off at the knees. His sole prescription is stubbornness. 'You have to write.'
-Washington Post
On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer must be considered essential reading for anyone seeking to write for a living, be it as a novelist, essayist, poet, columnist, or any other writing genre. Itself exceptionally well written.
-Midwest Book Review
While writing starts with one person, an empty page and an urge to say something, it ends with another person reading your words, digesting them and making a judgment. In the process the reader owns your words and makes something of them [...] That's why I'm keeping On Writing and Failure on my desk-for encouragement-which I am guessing is Marche's true purpose in writing the book.
-Globe and Mail
On Writing and Failure romps through a series of anecdotes about the thwarted aspirations of authors so as to instruct a 'kid writer' not to hope for anything.
-Literary Review of Canada
Marche reaches something deeper when he reminds us that many of these famous literary figures couldn't make a living wage with their writing [...] The book is endlessly quotable, and at times very funny.
-Winnipeg Free Press
On Writing and Failure is a slim little truth bomb I wish had been written when I first harboured notions of writing to be published.
-Policy Magazine
Marche's advice to writers, then, is to 'keep throwing yourself at the door.' Keep racking up rejections, keep amassing failures. Endure long enough, and eventually there will be a breakthrough, however arbitrary, however fleeting. On Writing and Failure is thus both a dark glimpse into the trials of creativity-and a comfort, a consolation.
-Lean Out with Tara Henley
Not only could I brave it; I managed to relish it.
-Miramichi Reader
On Writing and Failure is less about writing and more about perseverance. Reading it reminded me of all the things I thought impossible before I tried them and now find impossible to live without. Writing is one of those things.
-Compulsive Reader
A sparkling cocktail of bittersweet jokes and fizzing truth bombs.
-Jonathan Coe, author of Bournville
Praise for Stephen Marche
How Shakespeare Changed Everything is fun and informative, with more than its share of 'Aha!' moments packed between its diminutive covers. Mr. Marche's thesis is compelling and probably more true than we ever imagined.
-New York Journal of Books
So dazzling, so unsentimental ... A work that is both beautiful and confusing. In other words, an honest love story.
-New York Times
Brilliant ... Marche has created a stunning, evocative, and impressionistic account of the ascent of wealth in the twentieth century ... The Hunger of the Wolf could be Marche's breakthrough novel.
-Booklist, starred review
A dazzling virtuoso piece. Marche turns the making of a family's fortune into a fascinating, bloody fairy tale.
-Emma Donoghue, author of Room and Frog Music
Untrammelled, unfettered, unprecedented, unselfconscious and friggin' unbelievable, this book busts the novel open, makes literature an open question, and maps out brave new worlds for the reader to spelunk. With Raymond and Hannah I knew this guy was up to something brilliant. Shining at the Bottom of the Sea tells me I hadn't the faintest idea.
-Daniel Handler, author of Adverbs
