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Book Critic Merve Emre Is the Most Divisive Name in the Literary World

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Last winter, the 37-year-old literary critic and Wesleyan professor Merve Emre stood in front of a microphone in Rachel Comey's Soho boutique. The New York Review of Books was celebrating its new collection with the downtown designer, and the editor Emily Greenhouse had invited five contributors to give readings for the occasion. While the others had largely opted to pull boldfaced names from the Review's archives — like a 1985 Gore Vidal piece about Tennessee Williams — Merve Emre would be reading Merve Emre. Emre, wearing a fitted olive-green dress with archival NYRB cover art splashed across the bodice, arched a dark eyebrow. She fixed a piercing glance at the audience and began to read, enunciating each syllable with the crisp elocution of someone used to commanding a room. "More than any other writer today, Diane Williams understands the essentially tragicomic nature of the penis," she said. The audience broke into surprised laughter. "I'm on the dick beat," she riffed between pie

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