Sir, – Further to the interview with James Patterson, "A 400-page book is too much for a lot of people" (June 8th), the corrosive influence of this writer shows no signs of abating. With every week that passes, more and more retail shelf space is taken up by one of his "co-authored" works.
Far from helping new writers, he is encouraging bad, lazy, unambitious writing, where sales are all that matters.
It’s not that he’s a bad writer, as even bad writers have some passion for what they do. He is, by his own admission, a factory churning out replica books of dubious quality, and retailers bend to his will on every occasion. Now, with his new range of “novellas”, he is garnering more unwarranted space, space that could be made available to emerging, ambitious, genuine writers.
He says that readers no longer have the attention span to read a 400-page novel. If that is true, it is so-called “artists” like him that are the cause. – Yours, etc,
PHILIP BOYLE,
Sutton, Dublin 13.