Meg Wolitzer in Salon

Writer Meg Wolitzer did a great interview  for Salon where she talks about women's place in contemporary fiction, and why so few men read books about them:

"What matters in a big way is subject matter and men with very few exceptions, won’t read books about women. Something nebulous and thought-based – a book of ideas – people seem much more willing to have that from a man than a woman. 

If you’ve written a powerful book about a woman and your publisher then puts a “feminine” image on the cover, it ‘types’ the book. Serious books with ‘dreamy’ covers – many with women in water, floating or swimming, as though what’s contained within is a kind of dreamy inessential thing – the covers themselves are off-putting. Very few men want to go into what appears to be this sort of dream world. I’m known as a writer of stories about women but I wanted to write a pretty co-ed book this time. With Ethan, I feel I know him as well as anyone."