As part of the hoopla surrounding Franzen's new book, there's a growing debate about the varying media attention to men and women writers. Do men receive more honors and media attention for their books, while women writers are either ignored or painted as "Chick Lit" authors?

Slate reports that the New York Times Book Review reviews many more male writers than female writers. Of the 545 books that the Book Review reviewed between 6/08 and 8/10, 62 percent were written by men and 38 percent were written by women. They put their entire spreadsheet up on Google Docs.

Publishers have pushed women writers to fit into the Chick-Lit genre, because they think it's easy money. They take a book, which is about coming to terms with your family, and they put a picture on the cover of a decapitated girl in a party dress and heels. A book, which was about running away from the expected and the traditional, is sold as a love story.

A publicity goon sent me a mystery novel to review over the summer. I've been trying to be better about reading the free books that end up on my doorstep, so I decided to read it, even though I'm not a mystery story type of person. After a couple of chapters, I decided that the book was dreadful. It was so dreadful that I thought I should read the whole thing just so I could write an Anthony Lane-style review filled with elegant sneers. In the end, I decided not to write the review, because the writer had kind eyes in her picture on the back of the book, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

That book was a mystery novel wrapped in a chick-lit package. The plot was non-existent. The dead body didn't arrive until page 70. The villain did the classic monologue confession in the last chapter of the book. The story could have been ripped off from an episode of Scooby-Doo. The author spent most of her time trying to create an appealing heroine who wears Spanks and likes pulled pork sandwiches. There's a love interest, of course, who wears tight pants that shows off his nice ass. The author seemed to think that she could substitute fine writing with lots of name-dropping of familiar products.

There is clearly an imbalance between men and women in the serious book category, the type of books that are reviewed by the New York Times. However, the fault doesn't lie with the New York Times Book Review, but with publishers who are choosing to overlook the many women writers that don't conform to the chick-lit formula.