The Washington Post recently published an Editor’s Note apologizing for its negative review of John Irving’s novel Until I Find You (Random House). Novelist Marianne Wiggins’s July 10 review called the book a “mass of lazy, unrefined writing,” but did not disclose that her ex-husband Salman Rushdie is a friend of Irving’s, nor that she had socialized with Irving in the past. The paper’s editorial policy requires reviewers to reveal any contact with authors of books under review. The Editor’s Note, published on August 4, stated that the newspaper would not have assigned the review to Wiggins had they known of the conflict of interest.
