I first heard about Mischa Berlinski's Fieldwork on a Glenn and Helen podcast in which they interviewed the author. Until today, I never bought the book, although the interview helped inspire a long post about Naga headhunters.

Distracted by other things in the past couple of months, I had all but forgotten about the Berlinski book until yesterday, when I stumbled quite accidentally upon Stephen King's review of the book in "Entertainment Weekly." Book reviews don't usually make me mad (especially when the reviewer loves the book as much as King loved this one). But it wasn't the review that made me mad, it was reading about how the publisher undermined the book -- especially the reasons: Here's King:

If this is such a good read, what's the bad news? That's easy. As of March 26, Fieldwork was No. 24,571 on the Amazon best-seller list, and not apt to go much higher. The reason why is illustrative of how the book biz became the invalid of the entertainment industry, and why fiction sales are down across the board (with the possible exception of chick lit). Critics, with their stubborn insistence that there's a difference between ''literature'' and ''popular fiction,'' are part of the problem, but the publishers themselves, who have bought into this elitist twaddle, are also to blame. Since we're talking Fieldwork, take Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Publishing houses have two faces. In the case of FSG, Jekyll belongs to the distinguished company that has published such award-winning novels as Gilead, The Great Fire, and The Corrections. Hyde is the side which seems to proclaim ''Don't read this, it's too smart for the likes of you.''

Reading on made me want to write a post about it:

I picked Fieldwork up because I saw interesting words on the flap (fascination, taboo, sexual), but when I think about how close I came to passing it by, I just get mad. As it was, I grabbed it on impulse, thinking: I know you don't want me to buy you, you dull-looking thing, but I'm going to. Just to spite you.

Why, why, why would a company publish a book this good and then practically demand that people not read it? Why should this book go to waste? Is it because there are people in publishing who believe that readers who liked The Memory Keeper's Daughter are too dumb to enjoy a killer novel like Fieldwork? If so, shame on them for their elitism. Hey, guys, why not put the heroine on the jacket? Martiya in the jungle at night, or embracing her lover, or dancing with the native tribe of which she almost becomes a member? In other words, why not actually sell this baby a little?

It occurs to me that publishers may confuse ''selling'' with ''pimping.'' If so, here's a flash: They're not the same. Sell this one, and you make it possible for this guy to write the next one. You're doing him a mitzvah. And not just him. What about the ordinary reader? In case you forgot, guys, we are your friends, not unwashed, unlettered, germ-laden interlopers at the literary feast.

You don't want to do your job? Okay, I'll do it.

Under the drab title and the drab cover, there's a story that cooks like a mother. It's called Fieldwork.

Because some strange literary elite wants to be in charge of what constitutes literature?

Sheesh.

At the rate they're going, they'll do to writing what they've done to art.

So I bought the book not only to support the author, but out of spite for the publisher (to say nothing the intellectually bankrupt literary elites who seem to be influencing them).

Who knows? I might even get around to reading it.