Bouchercon Panel: Reviewer Ethics: The Reviewer’s Responsibility
Written byPosted on September 29, 2006
Filed Under Bouchercon
Deeper questions about Bouchercon’s troubling insular nature will have to wait. I’ll just say for now that, more than BEA, APE, WorldCon and nearly every other writers or readers conference I have ever attended, you will be a conversational pariah if you haven’t read the latest sixty hot mystery titles. I’m sure these folks are perfectly nice, but, given how fixed and unwavering they are on this subject (it is as if that creep who assaulted those kids in Colorado never happened), I’d rather head down State Street and have a beer and a brat with the Madison locals. More on this subject later.
For the moment, here’s a report on this afternoon’s panel Reviewer Ethics: The Reviewer’s Responsibility.
From L to R: Sarah Weinman (Moderator), Larry Gandle, Oline Cogdill, Sarah E.C. Byrne, Jennifer Jordan
I entered the room as the group was discussing the similarities and differences of professional and amateur reviews. Jordan opined that online reviews offered a looser and freer feel, with offbeat and quirky books getting offbeat and quirky reviews. She didn’t follow a set formula, but considered pro reviews to be more of a challenge. Gandle, by contrast, took the same approach for both pro and an amateur reviews, suggesting that a mystery review shouldn’t be as cryptic as certain reviewers for the New York Times Book Review. “I have absolutely no idea what she’s saying,” said Gandle.
Cogdilll noted that she felt giving away the plot was a violation of the reader’s trust. This led Byrne to chime in about police procedure discretions also being a violation of this trust. But who has the time, amateur or pro, to confirm these auctorial solecisms?
Cogdill, who reviews mysteries for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, inferred that the pro and the amateur set faced the same dilemma, pointing out that what she writes about often goes directly into the paper, with a quick look-see through a copy editor if there’s time.
Sarah brought up the question of conflicts of interest. Cogdill was particularly adamant about this, pointing out that she always paid her own way whenever she was wined and dined by a publisher. There was a difference between being a friend and being friendly, although this depended with each particular person. Gandle took a more egalitarian approach to the issue, noting that he buyed authors drinks and sometimes authors bought him drinks. He believed that none of this got in the way of his reviewing. Jordan likewise felt that she could aver the difference between the author and the work. Gandle, however, tended to avoid personal contacts with authors. “I don’t want to be punched out,” he said, leading Jordan to offer her services to protect him, if any physical confrontation went down at Bouchercon.
Cogdill, as ethical as she was, noted that if an author had a problem with one of her reviews, “it’s the author’s problem, not mine.” Some authors take issue with the work, some don’t. But the author’s temperament had, in her view, little to do with the reviews. “I’ve panned nice people,” she said. “I’ve raved about raging assholes.” While she didn’t review her friends, she still noted that she would review her husband’s book.
Offering a perspective from Australia, Byrne noted that reviewing in Australia involved negotiating a tiny literary community, one very hard to break into. But she seemed content to pull her punches, noting that if the book was bad, she wouldn’t review it.
Sarah asked for a ball-park estimation on the number of books each panelist read in a year. Cogdill offered a precise 208 (four books, fifty-two times a year). Jordan: Over 200. Gandle: Only two a week, with a full-time job. He apologized for being a slow reader.
Did publicists have any sway over what books were covered? To a certain degree. Sarah noted that it was part of her job to be aware of publishing trends and that she had to peruse “the reads of the year.” Cogdill did feel it a duty to cover “the big read of the year,” but all panelists expressed variations on these “big reads” often being disappointed. Case in point: the many Templar books that had crowded the mystery market.
An audience member asked if a first-time writer writing for a small-time press could “cut through the clutter.” But the answers to this question were fairly rote. Jordan’s answer, for example: a soft touch, quiet reminding.
Cogdill noted that gimmicks were more problematic than they were worth. One author had sent a package ten years ago having to do with the World Wide Web. She opened the package and was greeted by plastic spiders exploding out of the package, causing Cogdill to scream and the novel to be discarded. She cited another incident involving an author who had sent a book in a small coffin. The book was contained in a satin bed and it had cost the author $20 to send this through the mail. In the end, the creep factor had caused her to disregard the book.
Professionalism was a virtue. Cogdill described another novelist who had applied various Post-Its along the manuscript. (”I’m going to beef this section up,” read one.) Further, getting books in the hands of reviewers six months before their pub date was considered a great way to improve the possibility of this book being considered. Jordan noted that she could better plan her reading schedule if the book was in her hands well in advance.
A gentleman from the back asked what the point of writing negative reviews were. Gandle cited a well-known Amazon reviewer, who he had apparently attempted to persuade against writing nothing but positive reviews. Balance was important not only for critical acumen, but, as Jordan noted, to present readers with an idea of what the reviewer’s tastes were. The panelists, for the most part, disregarded Kirkus, PW and any of the other major review sources, opting instead for the cold review approach.
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Well, BEA and WorldCon are both too big to be all that insular. And, you know, when professional writers in any genre get together, they tend to talk about that genre predominantly — which just makes sense. Cut them some slack!
I just hope that Ed doesn’t embarass Sarah with his shenanigans, although I suppose she’s used to it by now.