Rejected!

Question: Who is the most rejected published novelist?

Answer: DickWimmer, author of Irish Wine. “His first novel, Irish Wine, was published in 1989 after being turned down by publishers and agents 162 times over 25 years. He once claimed to be history’s most-rejected published novelist.” But “The New York Times raved about the book the year it came out, calling it a ‘taut, finally written, exhaustingly exuberant first novel.’ ” “At the time, his closest official competition was Steven Goldberg’s The Inevitability of Patriarchy, which sold after 69 rejections, the Guinness Book of World Records said in 1989.”

Comment: How’s that for a useful piece of trivia? RayS.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, Wednesday, May 25, 2011, p. B6.