Authors behaving badly
By now, everyone's heard of Alice Hoffman's Twitter rant. Hoffman has since apologized, but that outsized reaction to a bad review has overshadowed one I find even more amusing and immature: Alain de Botton's comment on a book reviewer's blog, in which he writes:
"You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that's two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review. ... I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude."
Talk about bitter! Hatred and eternal bad will for a review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review which pretty much guarantees that everyone will hear about The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, even if they don't immediately buy it.
I guess Botton's not a member of the "no such thing as bad publicity" camp. And now? There are people swearing never to read the book simply because of his reaction to the review. Talk about backfiring!
So how should author's respond to a bad review? The Guardian suggests writing a nasty journal entry, and then destroying the evidence, which does make sense in a writer's state of mind. But I'm wondering why the authors, in both cases, couldn't have simply written a private message to the reviewer.
And I guess this is my plea: Authors, if I anger you, just shoot me an e-mail. I'm sure we can discuss this like rational adults and not enraged elementary school kids at recess.
While she always preferred The Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, 
Comments
A reviewer of my first book had written that I lacked style and finesse. The review was being discussed at a program I was doing at a library in the Bronx, a few blocks from where I had grown up. Needless to say, the place was packed with local fans. In response to the review, an older Irish lady in the back shouted out, "Who cares about finesse anyway? I'd like to tell that reviewer a thing or two. When you're from the Bronx, you don't need finesse. In fact, finesse is a bad thing." OK, then. God bless those hometown supporters!
Posted by: Gail Farrelly | July 1, 2009 12:17 PM
The terrific novelist Vance Bourjailey once advised writers to pay especial interest to whatever critics hated about their work. Don't remember how he put it, but basically he said that whatever critics hated was what was special abut a writer's work, and the writer should do more of it.
Posted by: patrick lackey | July 1, 2009 5:25 PM
Yes, these negative responses often spiral down (not simply out of control, but DOWN!). We all need to remember that it's hard to retract something that's put on the Internet.
I support your plea to keep the correspondence private; I never want to get into a verbal fistfight with an author or other commenter on my blog!
Posted by: Dawn - She is Too Fond of Books | July 1, 2009 5:36 PM
I just wish someone of prominence would REVIEW 'Without Reproach', whether good or not - ANY publicity would be good.
Some people will read a book with a bad review just to see how bad it actually is....
Posted by: Anthony James Barnett - author | July 2, 2009 10:29 AM
This thread makes me very glad that I catalog books for a living--not review them!
Posted by: Dahlink | July 3, 2009 10:18 AM