Independent booksellers are bashing “Angela’s Ashes” author Frank McCourt for shilling for mega-rival Barnes and Noble’s online superstore in a TV ad.
The American Booksellers Association voted Saturday to send a letter to the New York-based author expressing disappointment with his new role as corporate pitchman.
The group represents 3,300 independent bookstores that have seen much of their business swallowed up by bookselling behemoths such as Barnes and Noble, Borders and online pioneer Amazon.
But McCourt said: “I’ve never asked for an apology in my life and I’ve never given one.
“What I do I do. If I get a letter from them it’ll go back unopened.
“If they [the independent stores] had wanted me to do a commercial I would have done one for them, too.”
The former New York high school teacher whose memoirs of growing up poor in Ireland became a surprise bestseller had previously been a darling to the independent crowd.