More of a Real Post about The Illustrator by James Robison and then also Legacy and Fame and Word-Spreading

I ended last week's Internet/Franzen smackdown post with a bit about James Robison's The Illustrator, knowing already I wanted to talk about the book outside the context of "good books that don't get as much attention as The Corrections." Which is really almost any good book. So let's back up.

A few weeks ago, I had my first visit to the fiction stacks of the downtown Nashville Public Library, a big impressive room where Dawn Raffel graces the new releases shelf and where people actually seem ...