Authors behaving badly

A friend of mine recently had a book published and received, in addition to the glowing reviews, a very harsh review. A group of us commiserated and one joked, “We’ll form a strike squad and send harsh responses to anyone who dares criticize our friend!”

My response was: “I know we’re all kidding around, but seriously: NEVER DO THIS.”

Not responding to people who say nasty things is good advice for real life too–leave Ye Olde Jerks alone, don’t descend to their level–but specifically in regards to criticism about books and writing it’s really crucial. Because the authors I know of who’ve responded to critics or harsh reviews really come off as peevish, petty, and self-obsessed.

And now I’m going to share these ridiculous responses with you so that you too can revel in their foolishness.

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First up we have Anne Rice’s rant (pop-up window with the complete and unedited rant in it — note to Anne: dudette, carriage returns are your friend!). You have to read the whole thing to realize what a terrible idea responding to criticism was. You’ll probably only be able to read a few sentences of it, because it’s a look inside her psyche, and what you find inside is an arrogant, self-impressed author who slights any and all critics as morons. “You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren’t even reading it…I’m justifiably proud of being read by intellectual giants and waitresses in trailer parks,in fact, I love it, but who in the world are you?” Good move, Anne: the millionaire author talking about waitresses in trailer parks.

Her rather proud boast that she doesn’t use editors for her work — “And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status.” — speaks volumes about how her books have come to the sad state they’re at. It speaks volumes about this rant.

I can’t be completely objective about Rice’s insane move here, because I took classes from Floyd Salas, who was friends with her and her husband while they were all students at San Francisco State. Floyd knows lots of stuff about Rice and isn’t shy about telling it. And there’s her continual motif in her work of young children willingly and lovingly engaging in sex — once is a plot element; multiple times is a fixation. Or worse.

I gave up reading her when I took The Tale of the Body Thief out of the library and felt I’d paid too much. I handed it to Darin and said, “She took a trip on the QEII and wrote this book as a way of writing the trip off.” I found out later that yes, she had in fact taken a trip on the QEII.

Neil Gaiman said it best of course, in his own blog:

I think that unless a reviewer gets their facts completely wrong, the author should shut up (and even then, the author should probably let it go — although I’m a big fan of a letter that James Branch Cabell wrote to the New York Times pointing out that their review of FIGURES OF EARTH was bollocks). As Kingsley Amis said, a bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn’t let it spoil your lunch.

I suspect that most authors don’t really want criticism, not even constructive criticism. They want straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked praise, arriving by the shipload every fifteen minutes or so. Unfortunately an Amazon.com reviews page for one of the author’s books is the wrong place to go looking for this. Probably best just not to look.

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Then there’s Laurell K. Hamilton. I’ve never particularly cared for her stuff, but she’s had rabid fans. Her fanbase has split over the last few of her books, which have degenerated into a non-stop sex fest (a poorly edited, poorly spellchecked sex fest at that). As I’ve said to some friends, I am all for plotless porn, but when it’s boring, mechanical plotless porn, I’m annoyed. Evidently the part of her fanbase unhappy with her changing Anita Blake from a Vampire Hunter into a Vampire Humper inspired this response from Laurell.

My favorite line from this is We’d like to see Anita do her job more. (Me, too.) Honey, I don’t care what writers say about “channeling their characters.” The writer is the one in charge. You’re the one who decides what the book is about. If you didn’t want it to be a non-stop banging session, you can change it.

In one paragraph she says her subconscious will always be “contrary” so she’s going to do the exact opposite of what the critiquers want, followed by claiming that, like JK Rowling, she’ll never change a word of her work based on what people want. The disconnect there is hilarious.

Her whining about people talking about her personal life is hilarious too. Not only does she write these incredibly pornographic books, but she gives interviews in which she says stuff like, “I have experienced everything Anita has,” or something like that (which would lead one to the inescapable conclusion that…well…). And on her blog she’s continually mentioning “alone time” with her husband. She should probably stop talking about her sex life if she wants other people to.

She wants to do what she wants, and she wants everyone to love her, and she’s going to lash out at people who don’t love her. Great. Do it at home, babe, because otherwise you’re just a whiny mess.

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And lastly Pooks (who’s planning her own response to this) pointed me to this article by Annie Proulx on Brokeback Mountain losing the Oscar for Best Picture to Crash (here’s the popup).

DVD copies of Trash – excuse me – Crash? Very classy, Ms. Proulx. The level of wit I expect from, say, anonymous commenters on Amazon. And then there’s If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices. “See? They loved the movie. So they’re smart.”

There could be lots and lots of reasons why the Academy voters chose Crash over Brokeback Mountain. I don’t know, I didn’t see either one. But calling them (not once, but twice) heffalumps? Ye Gods, woman. You should read David Ehrenstein’s vicious lambasting of this year’s Oscars, and his rant about how Brokeback Mountain is the gay movie for straight people. I’m not always sure what I think of Ehrenstein’s rants, but a heffalump he ain’t.

Then there’s her ire at the Brokeback actors being shut out in favor of actors playing real-life people:

But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page? I don’t know. The subject never comes up. Cheers to David Strathairn, Joaquin Phoenix and Hoffman, but what about actors who start in the dark?

Seriously, this woman has been in publishing for how long? I’d hate to hear how she’d deal with losing out on an award.

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Unfortunately, the only three examples I can think of off the top of my head of authors calling the public idiots for not appreciating their genius are women. Is this somehow a female thing?

The only name calling/feuding/pissing contest I know of involving male authors is one that pits Tom Wolfe against Norman Mailer, John Irving, and John Updike. (Do a Google search on “Tom Wolfe Norman Mailer feud” and see how many mainstream articles there are about these authors going at one another.) And, of course, Gore Vidal and (Insert author here). I don’t know of any male authors who have lashed out at their fans or the public for being stupid. If anyone knows of one, please let me know so I can add it here.