Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters | Hacker News Reader

Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

lareviewofbooks.org

170 pointsblegh73 comments

"On the other is a rejection from Morrison, sometimes brusque yet typically offering something more than an expression of disinterest—notes on craft, character development, the need for more (or less) drama. But also: Autopsies of a changing, and in many ways diminishing, publishing industry; frustrations with the tastes of a reading public; and sympathies for poets, short story writers, and other authors drawn to commercially hopeless genres."

This is a beautiful way to soften the blow of rejection and turn it into an opportunity for growth. I wish the modern tech equivalent of a rejection letter could include the same kindness ("Thank you for your interest ... We regret to inform you ... After careful consideration, we are not moving forward"). I've managed/founded, so I fully understand how much liability this opens the company up to, but I still mourn the loss of this small kindness.

I've been on the receiving end of "thoughtful" rejection letters. Some have been helpful, but some really served to cement the subjectivity of the whole thing.

The "funniest" one is one where I in fact knew the person who got the job. I received a nice and long rejection letter explaining all the points they found off for me. I was too aloof during the interview process itself (thinking I was a good fit), and many of the points mentioned were not wrong. But I knew for a fact that I was better than the person who got the job on all the mentioned points[0]! There was one thing not mentioned, a pure "culture fit" component[1]. Pretty sure that was a decisive factor, but not mentioned.

It just felt like something where, if I didn't have the full context, I would have really bogged myself down from "wrong" feedback. And when feedback can involve innate parts of one's personality, from people who have already decided to not work with you, it can be painful.

[0]: I worked closely with this person for many years. I do not have ill will towards them, the skill gap I'm mentioning was purely a "years of experience" thing IMO

[1]: for the curious: the place hired loads of people in a certain community, of which ~all of them were from the British Isles. I am not.

Sounds like you dodged a bullet. If you didn't like the vibe of the rejection feedback, can you imagine how miserable you might have felt hearing similar feedback at an annual perf/compensation review?

I think we do ourselves a disservice with terms like "hard skills" (which I'm assuming you elided to just "skills" in your post; please forgive me if I'm mistaken).

I've been at the receiving end of culture fit rejections too. It's so rough to hear what basically amounts to "seems like you might be capable of doing the job, but we're not convinced we want to work with you."

I didn't crack that mindset until I started making hiring decisions. Teams are what deliver in the long run, so it's important to stack a balanced team that gels. Having the skills to do the job is certainly important, but equally important was knowing stuff like...

Will this person feel challenged and happy here? Do they have room to grow? Are they coachable; how do they handle feedback (defensive or receptive)?

It takes anywhere from 2-6 months to get a software engineer fully ramped and operational, depending on seniority. It also takes 6-12 months (on top of that) to ethically handle someone that's not working out due to a bad culture fit. Ideally, the company has an environment that will work for the person, but that's often not the case.

Almost every time I've had to fire someone, it wasn't about skills (skills can be taught) - it was because I looked past a clear culture mismatch.

After I personally had to fire someone I shouldn't have hired in the first place, I gained new perspective about all the times I was rejected for "culture fit."

Anyway, I hope some of this helps take the sting away. There's a better job for you out there, and I'm rooting for you to find it.

I was hoping for a link to all of her rejection letters but alas, none is provided. I guess we have to visit the Random House archives at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

The same. Not necessarily a link, but more and longer quotes, rather than short quotes and interpretation of them.

> show don’t tell [...] she informed one writer that their “story is certainly worth telling,” but they “describe people and events from a distance instead of dramatizing them, developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are instead of being told.”

The second part of the quote (from "developing...") seems to be saying tell don't show. Is the quote mangled or I am misparsing?

I think I see how you’re interpreting the sentence.

Imagine instead the word “and” in place of the comma before “developing”.

The letter writers wants the author to be “dramatising (their events) AND developing scenes in which the reader…”

Thanks, I think you're right. It seems weird to have a parallel structure where the roles are swapped - but Toni Morrison would know better than me! Maybe it works better in the original context.

To see the context, I think I'd have to visit the "Random House archives at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library", though they do have a website: https://library.columbia.edu/libraries/rbml.html

Parentheses give a sensible parse for me (or nested further):

  describe people and events from a distance instead of (dramatizing them, developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are) instead of being told.

You have it precisely backwards. "Developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are" is synonymous with "show" and "being told" is literally a form of "tell."

The quote is introduced with "but", and the first part is the other way around ("...distance instead of dramatizing...").

There is a second “instead of” in the last part of the sentence that gives the proper context, in my reading

The two instances of "instead of" have opposing senses. The grammar can't be interpreted without the semantics. Anyway, it seems other people find this OK, which is interesting to me.

Below is the context in TFA, and the quote's form with show/tell placeholders:

  she informed one writer that their “story is certainly worth telling,” but they
  "[tell] instead of [show], [show] instead of [tell]."

I can read the second part as a directive (I'd use a semi-colon instead of a comma to show this myself). I bet the original letter's connection (instead of "but they" in TFA) supports this.

It feeds into my nascent theory that grammar is not necessary for everyday human communication, and its function is ornamental, like patterns on clothing, signifying social position. (Of course, it is useful in precise technical exposition and argument; though there's still greater precision in numerical quantification and first order logic.)

Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don't you find?

I don’t know English grammar, but I don’t think inverting the position of the show/tell would be against Brazilian Portuguese grammar.

I think a grammar is certainly necessary for everyday communication though. Not the academically decided normative grammar for a whole language. But every verbal communication follows grammatical rules, most of the time different from the written grammar and normative grammar, but rather a grammar agreed among the people that form a group that speaks that local grammar.

My grammatical issue is not the swapping itself, but the introduction of "but they" (indicating a problem with what the author has done) being applied to the swapping. That makes sense for the first part, tell not show, but not for the second part, show not tell (which is what the author should do).

Is grammar necessary? The original "lingua franca", an English pidgin, was a trade language around the Mediterranean, therefore economically very advantageous, yet has minimal grammar.

People can communicate with gestures.

One does need a way to qualify some specific part, e.g. if we negate something, what exactly are we negating? Maybe I have too restricted a definition of "grammar", but I think of the Chomsky Hierarchy, which are all sequential, i.e., with order dependence. I think the target of negation can be indicated without position, e.g. so "not tree" and "tree not" are not a sequential grammar (a commutative grammar?) Negation of a part could also be denoted with inflection, or gestures.

One could argue all this is a kind of grammar; but it's so far from what we normally call grammar that I think it's overstretching the concept.

Maybe I'm unneccesarily inferring parentheses from the quotation marks, like:

  but they (tell don't show, show don't tell).

It reads differently without them.

Is the gatekeeper function is diminished a bit by electronic publishing ?

Yes and No.

Yes, insofar as you can trivially publish and be on Amazon or your website. Doesn't mean anyone will find you of course.

No, as in historically at least, getting published through a major publisher opened up the possibility of book tours, reviews in major publications, bookshelf space in stores, and various types of editorial assistance. That's all generally less the case than it used to be though.

I do think the net result is less gate keeping.

You can have more cases like Andy Weir, that proves himself publishing digitally in his own site before being traditionally published. He didn’t need to impress or be friends with an editor. He had, to use a startup world, “traction” to prove he would sell books.

Similar with “50 shades of gray”, which started digitally as fanfic.

There is still some gate keeping and there are still benefits of being traditionally published, but it feels very safe to answer ”definitely yes” to que question ”did digital publishing led to less gate keeping?”.

Taken literally, you're correct. There are channels to getting a book published that mostly didn't exist before. Previously, you mostly needed to get an agent and work through them to get a publisher on board or you were probably wasting your time.

What's less clear is whether you have better odds of getting someone to read your book than was the case previously. I'm guessing the answer is probably no but the path to getting that reader is often going to be different today.

> ” whether you have better odds of getting someone to read your book than was the case previously.”

For me the answer for this is an even more strong “yes”.

Before, you could give your manuscript to a few, less than 10, friends. Then you would have zero readers until getting traditionally published.

Now, I still can have those <10 beta readers, but then publish on Amazon have more readers, with multiple channels that I can tap to have anything from dozens to thousands of readers before being traditionally published.

I did self-publish a science fiction book. I posted on LinkedIn (the only social media where my friends are connected to me) on launch and left it for free on Amazon. About 200 people downloaded it. I would guess 50% of those read it. Already a win over the old days.

Then I could, without anyone approval, pay a small amount to a book influencer to advertise my book. I got something close to 1,000 more readers on Kindle Unlimited.

There are people that do not know me personally writing reviews about my book. Another big win against the old days.

Then, there are those more successful than me (like Andy Weir) that can reach thousands of readers before being published.

And then there is still some niches, like romance and hot, that reach millions of readers through Amazon without ever being traditionally published (they earn more money remaining self published).

What's the most famous book that she rejected?

I was forced to read her book in school, I didn't care for it. One wonders what percentage of her readers read her willingly.

When people say this, I wonder what kind of books they appreciate.

…Dan…brown…

I think it's possible to appreciate a book as literature but not want to ever read it again. The Bluest Eye (for example) is a rare glimpse into the horrors of racism and sexism, especially as both intersect with standards of beauty. It's not a book I would pick up without a grade at stake though.

I think I would wonder about someone who actually likes it. It's a horrifying read.

I don’t get a strong sense of appreciation from the parent comment though.

Perhaps this is not unlike how many of my friends and colleagues questioned why I chose to visit places like Auschwitz while I was on vacation in Eastern Europe. I try not to limit the books I read, films I watch and places that I visit to those that aren’t intellectually and/or emotionally challenging and difficult. Or maybe I’m just weird.

Currently reading Turris Babel in the original Latin. What books are you into? You will be judged by your answer, and assumed to be a non-reader if you don't reply.

I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

I personally just finished Knausgaard (in English, my Norwegian is lacking) and am currently reading Pussy, King of the Pirates by Kathy Acker as a light follow up.

It's a toss up between Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive by David Mowaljarlai and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar for me.

Readers who like Kircher might also enjoy: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=C0iGO0Hr95UC and triple check his math .. it gets pretty wonky.

> Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive by David Mowaljarlai

This looks incredible. Going to add it to my (always expanding) list.

Your mileage may vary, I enjoyed it :)

Obit: https://australianarchaeologicalassociation.com.au/journal-c...

Artwork: https://www.aasd.com.au/artist/1861-david-banggal-mowaljarla...

Short trailer for a movie filmed in David's country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJv1AVvPK3Q

I've loved books that have won lots of awards and recognition that I only read cause it was part of a curriculum, but it's perfectly reasonable to also not connect with some of them.

I read almost exclusively fantasy and have always loved reading since I was young. Fantasy series are often trilogies or more with some being over 10 books long.

You go on adventures, read about relationships, interpersonal problems, power, team work, individualism, religion, and so much more. While it's mostly what I read, it's not all, but it keeps me reading.

I strongly disliked Morrison's books when I read them, though I'll happily concede they're expertly written.

Some fiction books I've read as an adult and appreciate:

Gone with the Wind, Fields of Fire, American Psycho, The Turn of the Screw, Anna Karenina

Some from school:

To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Frienheit 451, Moby Dick, Brave New World

Some of the more pop fictiony:

American Gods, The Stand, His Dark Materials, A Song of Ice and Fire, Imajica

> though I'll happily concede they're expertly written.

Enjoyment is a deeply personal thing but I can’t imagine dismissing Morrison as not worth anyone’s time.

She’s a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, National Book Critics Circle Award, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters; one of the most celebrated writers in American literature. I understand that you may not personally like the book of hers you read, but to suggest that people read her just because they’re required to is absurd.

>but to suggest that people read her just because they’re required to is absurd

Its not, source: the OP

Your comment made me realise how much I hated being required to read X because of all the exact reasons you mentioned above. Just because what I've read didn't win a nobel prize doesn't mean I cant find it subjectively better.

From what I can determine, the books that kids are forced to read in high school are the books that their elders really loved; and often were not forced to read in high school.

Most every book I was forced to read I still hate enough that I'll never bother rereading it. I'm sure they're all great; they also weren't for me, not at that time.

Which is why the absolute last thing I'd ever do is assign anyone to read any of the books I love.

I find that I generally love most of the books I was forced to read. Even if I didn’t at the time.

I make time to re-read Grapes of Wrath once every decade and I connect with it differently every time I do. Catcher in the Rye has also taken new meaning as I’ve aged to where I can imagine Holden as my troubled, disaffected teenage son.

I hated Romeo and Juliet as a teenager because everyone saw it as a beautiful romance and I thought I was so smart recognizing it as a cautionary tale of the impulsiveness of youth. But now I see it as a beautiful love story.

I’m grateful that I was forced to read these as a young teenager because now I can reflect on these works and my reaction to them as a reflection of my own life.

I find most kids are required to read very little. If it wasn’t for AP courses I probably would have skated through high school only having to read 5-8 books. That’s absurd. Kids should have to read a book at least every month.

Good thing you’re not an English teacher then.

A thing to consider about the goal of education: when done correctly, they’re not trying to make you love every you read (I will never appreciate reading Shakespeare) but ideally are just trying to expose you to a wide range of things to help you find what you might love.

I would have never read “The Things They Carried” independent of school but “How to tell a true war story” is one of the most important chapters of any book I’ve ever read in my life.

I’m in the same camp as another replier in that I’ve come to like - even adore - much of what I hated because it was required reading. If you feel like you’ve changed since high school then I encourage you to consider rereading some of what you hated because it just might take a new meaning for you.

On a broader point, it’s a shame there is such much focus on subjects like literature and history for children and young adults. As I get older I realize that it takes one’s own life experience in order to connect with these subjects. History without your own lived experience is just words on a page.

When I was a kid, to me no book was subjectively better than the Star Wars Expanded Universe (now "Legends") novels. I've never read anything from Toni Morrison but my life is richer for having been made to read outside the niche I chose for myself.

You can discount awards and the opinions of professionals but there is still value in being exposed to things you wouldn't have picked on your own during your formative years. Maybe most of it leaves you cold, but sometimes you find something you would not have picked that speaks to you. That's how I was introduced to my favorite author. You never know what will land a little differently than you would have expected. Sometimes the classics are classics for a reason.

Yeah, I used to be very adverse to such things, I still am, in part because I know just how impossible it is to read something you dont believe and get an understanding of the material at the same time. It requires suspension of disbelief. anyone can have an open mind sometimes, but no one can do that all the time. For some concrete examples I would implore you to read excerpts from 'Ageless Body, Timeless Mind' by deepak chopra. To put it mildly, I know I have my limits.

Required reading material is usually more mundane than some of the stuff out there. But that could also mean that it's not daring enough to require reading. So my philosophy is that you should support people in choosing their adversity, never mandating.

Another way to think of this: often/for-some, none of the above has anything to do with the qualities of the author - but a failing of the eductational system/style.

I remember being forced to read some books in high school. I hated them.

When I returned to them later in life, by choice, I absolutely loved them.

This is why I disregard the debate above.

Awards are a racket that perpetuate themselves by making money for a constellation of editors, magazines, and talk shows. They have little to do with talent and even less to do with readability. How many of the Academy Awards Best Picture nominees over the last five years has the average person watched and enjoyed? Book awards are even more out of touch. Also do you honestly think that winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom is an unbiased recommendation? It's a propaganda award.

I think you're going to have connect a lot more dots than that to prove that type of conspiracy. These awards are heralded year after year because of their reliability in giving people what they expect out of an award, whether they're forward looking (for predicting future success) or more backward-looking. There is some flexibility in how people judge deservedness for them.

You can at least concede that when it comes to Toni Morrison, its not like she only won a couple of isolated awards. She won a long string of them, and is one of the most decorated American writers of the last 80 years. One of her books, Beloved, was made into a movie by Oprah. There are plans to make a second book (Sula) into a movie or series as well.

I don't think making movie out of a book tells anything either... Ofc, they will pick such works just because they can put pretentious marketing blurbs everywhere...

Just looking at art market and how it works with artist should tell everything about these markets in general. All marketing and manipulation.

Not taking sides but this is argument from authority fallacy. Whether she is a Nobel Prize winner or not is irrelevant to answering OP's comment and whether her books are page turners or majority find them uninteresting.

All you have to do is go on Rotten Tomatoes and compare the professional critic's rating with the audience rating.

If your preferences generally align with professional critics, you are in the minority as far as I can tell - at least for movies.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for books, vindicating OP, but I don't know of an appropriate data source that could settle this.

I thought it was considered "well known" that the Rotten Tomatoes audience rating is not trustworthy because of ballot stuffing by the film studios.

I find that it’s fairly reliable unless there is a ton of money involved. A marvel movie with a giant budget that the studio needs to do ok? Probably gets a 10-20% curve. But a cryptic indie film? Generally pretty close. Basically usi

I think there were news of an agency doing the work to favor good critics reviews among the 50 first ones on the release of smaller budget movies.

The two groups looks for very different things in the media. One care deeply about it and appreciates many different aspects of it, and sometimes the intellectual challenge is part of it. They are utterly bored by most books and films.

The other group wants to relax and be entertained, not solve an intellectual puzzle.

Many are somewhere in between. I don’t care about an odyssey through some neo-Marxist mystery, but are utterly bored by Marvel iteration 25.

Not necessarily authority fallacy. Toni Morrison books had two big booms in sales. One after winning the Nobel Prizes and other, actually others, when Oprah Winfrey included her books in her book club.

I would categorize those readers to be reading her willingly.

People feel like this about a lot of Nobel authors. Patrick White won, I've never finished any book of his after "a fringe of leaves" and Thomas Mann just bored me to tears. To the other side, the ones i loved, Hermann Hesse was un-putdownable. Likewise Doris Lessing. A lot of people dislike Lessings writing style.

So.. it's all about what you like.

But I'd take writing advice from Ms Morrison seriously.

My questioning of Patrick White began with hearing that he wanted Ken Russell to direct a film based on Voss ...

That seemed like an, ahhhhhh, interesting choice of auteur.

Oh, come on now. You don't have to enjoy Toni Morrison, but to discount her absolute success because she isn't your preference is more than a little ridiculous.

Every school library in the US has 120 copies of this book. I'm just wondering how many non-school / library buyers there were. If her success is government-mandated, it can easily be discounted.

I always thought people borrowing books meant fewer sales, not more. Stephen King will be happy to hear it

> Every school library in the US has 120 copies of this book.

This seems improbable.

It seems even more unlikely when The Bluest Eye has been banned so often:

    The ALA placed it on the Top Ten Most Challenged Books Lists for 2006, 2014, 2013, 2020, and 2022.

    Ultimately, it became the 34th-most banned book in the United States 1990–1999, the 15th-most banned book 2000–2009, and the 10th-most banned book 2010–2019.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bluest_Eye

Can you back up this assertion at all?

I admit some confusion of the idea that Toni Morrison is successful only because she was taught in schools. Schools aren’t known to push literature in classrooms published within that year on a nationwide scale (outside of specifically librarian association recommendations or something like this, a scholastic books thing). From a brief Wikipedia read, The Bluest Eye was published with Toni Morrison was nearly 40 and didn’t sell well, so it makes no sense why that’s the one taught in schools.

ah here we go, you don't like it because it's a culture war thing

Yeah getting statue avi vibes from them.

I was biased to have negative opinions of many books simply because I was 'forced to read them in school'.

It was only many years later when I chose to read them that I could appreciate their quality.

Me too. "The Bluest Eye" - in college.

It was devastating. I'm glad I read it, even though parts of it were really uncomfortable.

I was assigned to read many books in schools, but I was never forced to read any of them.

A stern letter to your parents if you don't might count as force.

This depends on perspective and agency. In my opinion there is nothing you must do in this life, as in forced by others, unless physically unable to resist. You can consider the consequences and make a more or less informed choice. The point being, the choice is yours and noone else is to be blamed for the consequences.

Since no one else has asked, what did you not like about it? I found the magic realism look towards, specifically, racially segregated chattel slavery and the generations who lived in the shadow of it was a very interesting mix of ideas. I remember her stories being beautiful and horrifying, her prose being precise while being fantastical, and her style and story material being quite unique.

Would love to know what you didn't like. Perhaps I have a rose-tinted view of reading those books long ago

"Forced to read" is itself a swine. I can't abide Shakespeare for the same reason, and I understand that he's rather well thought of as a writer.

Do you think compulsory schooling till 18 is bad? It's arguably the single thing which eliminated most child labor and child marriage in countries it exists in.

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