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"The plot of an Alafair Burke thriller doesn't just rip from the headlines. She's one step ahead of them. 212 scares you and keeps you turning the pages into the wee hours."
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Alice Hoffman and the Boston Globe
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Based on commentary here, here, here, here, etc., I gather I'm not the only writer with a reaction to Alice Hoffman's recent reaction to a negative(ish) review by author Roberta Silman in the Boston Globe. In case you missed the details, Hoffman took her complaint to Twitter, "tweeting" 27 comments in response to the review. Hoffman has since yanked her Twitter account, but Gawker gives you the gist.
Like probably every writer, when I first saw the headline, "Novelist Uses to Twitter to Trash Critic," I immediately had painful flashbacks to my most rage-inducing review. The review, the only negative one I received among several handfuls of glowing ones, began, "Reviewers have been unkind to [title]." I continue to believe that statement is libelous, and for a day and a half, I told my agent, editor, and anyone who would listen so. I even started to draft a letter to the publication, complete with copies of every (did I mention glowing?) review of the book, daring the reviewer to identify the source of what seemed like a factual statement, not an opinion.
See? As much as writers say they don't care about reviews, that sh*t still hurts. So when I saw the first online teaser about Hoffman blasting a reviewer, part of me wanted to cheer her own. Yeah, sister, you tell 'em.
But then I read the content.
Some of the doozies? "Roberta Silman of the Boston Globe is a moron." "Writers used to review writers. My second novel was reviewed by Ann [sic] Tyler. So who is Roberta Silman?" And worst of all, "If you want to tell Roberta Silman off her phone is xxx." She also threw in Silman's email address for good measure but misspelled the domain name.
There's something intensely personal and aggressive about Hoffman's response. Never mind that one of Hoffman's own forays into the book reviewing biz, a negative NY Times review of a Richard Ford book, drove the author and his wife to shoot copies of Hoffman's books. And never mind that the answer to "So who is Roberta Silman?" turns out to be recipient of a Guggenheim and NEA Fellowship, accomplished short story author, and so on. Even if Silman were some pajama-clad, basement-dwelling blogger (gasp!), Hoffman's attack on her would be disturbing.
Posting the woman's direct contact information and encouraging your vast world of followers to "tell her off"? At the very least, it smacks of a (far more talented) B-list celebrity excoriating a club doorman: "Do you realize who I am?" From a darker perspective, it reminds me of the non-physical but nonetheless abusive power plays I saw as a prosecutor in domestic violence cases, intended to belittle, debase, and intimidate.
Pushing the send key too quickly in the internet age is nothing new or unimaginable. Hell, I might regret posting this the second I hit "publish." But 27 tweets? That's a little nuts.
Hoffman owes the reviewer a better apology than this. It got "completely blown out of proportion?" "In the heat of the moment?" "Of course I was dismayed" by Silman? "I didn't mean to hurt anyone?" And of course the obligatory, "I'm sorry if I offended anyone."
I'm flashing back again, but this time to sentencing hearings when I was a prosecutor. Those are precisely the kinds of apology-sounding but non-apologetic statements that would bring down a judge's hammer. Hoffman apologizes to her readers, whom she hopes will "understand," but never apologizes to Silman. Instead, she repeats her allegation that Silman provoked her rage by giving away spoilers in her review. (Yeah, that was her problem with the review.)
Alice Hoffman's a true talent. She knows how to use her words. She should use them to make right with a fellow writer who didn't deserve to have her phone number tweeted.
If you enjoyed this post, please follow me at Twitter and Facebook. (I'm now turning the ringer off my phone.)
posted by Alafair Burke at 12:56 PM
 
3 Comments:
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Hey! I don't blog in my basement! Just kidding! Very nicely said, Alafair. There are appropriate channels and appropriate actions. Ms. Hoffman did not use either and she's lost the respect of many people in the book world, whether they're "someone" or not.
Enough already!
While I agree that Ms. Hoffman should have probably taken a walk to cool down before she wrote those tweets, she's not the first person (and certainly won't be the last), to commit something to the Internet out of anger. For anyone to belabor the incident by tweeting about it (some with links to copies of her removed posts- what's the intent there?) and posting blog articles to slap her hands seems senseless. She knows she screwed up without all this fuss, and I think it makes her detractors look just as bad to continue to poke at her about it.
By the way, I did read the review, and although it wasn't scathing, what bothered me was that it seemed to take a subtle shot at her readers near the end of the piece- as if to wonder what they could possibly be thinking to be interested in her writing. What's up with that?
I've also seen some fairly tacky tweets from writers and others in the publishing industry that made me lose a little respect for them. While some of them may be having fun and just letting loose on Twitter, a potential new reader could be turned off by some of their comments as well.
Maybe everyone should just worry about their own words and let the chips fall where they may.
With all due respect, "Anonymous," I have to disagree with you:
"She knows she screwed up without all this fuss..."
Would she really have known she screwed up without people reacting negatively to her? I don't believe she would have, especially based on her "apology."
"I've also seen some fairly tacky tweets from writers and others in the publishing industry that made me lose a little respect for them."
So, isn't that basically reinforcing what's be presented about Ms. Hoffman? She's lost the respect of many just as you've lost the respect of those folks you're referring to.
Like it or not, when you gain "fame" you are in the eyes of the public and even more so when you choose to use social networking. PR specialists wouldn't exist if that wasn't true in this country - and we try to teach our young people about being "responsible" in their social networks so it doesn't come back to bite them. So, when you make a choice the way Ms. Hoffman made her choice, you're almost guarenteed to have reactions to it: good, bad or indifferent. And they're all out there right now.
I guess you could say, that's the beauty (or ugliness, depending on how you're looking at it) of our freedom of speech.