SOURCE: Moore, Caroline. “Sugar and Spice.” Spectator 280, no. 8862 (13 June 1998): 38.

In the following review, Moore presents a negative assessment of The Everlasting Story of Nory, noting that the work is overly cute and sweet.

You need a strong stomach to be a critic of modern novels, which collectively give the impression of a world in which children who have not been sexually abused by their near relations are pretty thin on the ground. I thought I had supped full of horrors, but nothing quite prepared me for the stomach-churning qualities of Nicholson Baker's latest novel [The Everlasting Story of Nory]. Professional duty got me through it, but it was a close-run thing.

Perhaps I should have expected something disconcerting. Nicholson Baker's recent fiction has moved away from the ‘exuberantly detailed comedies of ordinary life’ billed by the blurb to exuberantly detailed fantasies about masturbation. This book, however, finds a...