Volume 25, Number 20 · December 21, 1978
Objection
By Joyce Carol Oates
To the Editors:
I object to the use (or misuse) of my name in an advertisement for Anne Sexton's Words for Dr. Y which appeared in your October 12 issue.
A concluding remark of mine in a lengthy (and certainly very critical) review of Anne Sexton's letters has been high-handedly wrenched out of context and made to seem as if it applied to a book which I haven't even seen. My remark appears to relate to an entire paragraph of ad copy—all of which was written by someone else. I have not made a blanket endorsement of all of Sexton's poetry, as anyome who read the review would know (it was published in American Book Review), and I am certainly not recommending in such inflated terms Words for Dr. Y, which I have not read. Certainly Houghton Mifflin could advertise this book without willfully distorting my comments on Sexton.
Joyce Carol Oates
Princeton, New Jersey