In His Head, He Was Constantly Panning It: When A New Yorker Book Critic Writes A Novel Of His Own

James Wood: “I find I can’t turn off the critical monitor quite how I would like to. … Perhaps I’ve reconciled myself to that inability, but I’ve come to the conclusion that that isn’t such a bad thing, that maintaining a critical consciousness at least enables me to review myself, edit myself, think twice and three times about everything I’m doing. … I found it to be sort of an intensely self-critical activity. So yeah, I was constantly writing my worst possible reviews.”