I got a new rejection back on my taxi book today. The agent was named Toni Lopopolo. She wrote:
"Thanks, but I'll pass - your story may be a good one but I enjoy a 'point of view' - i.e., use a character's POV to 'see the story' - as written. This is the [something unintelligible] author method and it seems dated and distant to me. If you don't have these books, get them: 1) Stein on Writing, by Sol Stein, and 2) Self Editing For Fiction Writers, by Brown and King.
You see, if the novel is not put in one character's point of view, the intimate [something unintelligible] 3rd person - then it's no one's POV and that doesn't work for me." T.L.
"Dated and distant?"
Stupid bitch! I intended it that way. It's omniscient third
person! What about it? I like it that way!
If it seems dated and distant, maybe it's cause I was consciously trying to imitate Steinbeck's style, and yup, he has been dead a while... Yup, another dead, hack writer. But I like him. A dead hack writer with a Nobel Prize for literature...
I will persist!