I've been intrigued by the recent controversy on twitter. This one concerns one Alice Hoffman, who apparently is a best-selling novelist, though I can't say I've ever read one of her books. I saw the movie based on her YA novel Aquamarine. It was putrid, but that doesn't really say much about the source material. I guess another one of her books was made into a Sandra Bullock movie.
So, okay, ol' Alice has had a whole lot of success. Each of those movies is a six-figure payday, and that's on top of whatever she makes in advances, which is probably quite a bit if she's a reliable brand. I say all of this to point out two things. 1.) I am jealous of her and 2.) she's not some struggling writer, suffering for her art. Nor is she new to the whole publishing and reviewing process.
And yet she went completely apeshit over this review in yesterday's Boston Globe. It's not a positive review, and I suppose there's too much plot summary, but it's really pretty respectful as these things go.
Not so respectful, though, was Alice's twitter stream after she got her Globe and, presumably, at least two cups of coffee too many. Gawker walks you through, tweet by tweet, here. There's a lot to hate: posting your reviewer's contact info and hoping sycophantic fans will complain for you; dissing Boston as a town where a barking dog is the second biggest news story; (stupid, especially because it has no bearing on whether the book sucks or not. If one needs to be from New York in order to appreciate Alice's genius, why on earth does she permit her books to be sold to us rubes in other places?); and, yes, the "I am woman, hear me roar" pseudo-feminist defense. (Way to go, Alice! Don't let that servant of the patriarchy who, um, happens to also be female, silence you!)
The received wisdom for writers is that you don't respond to negative reviews, and Alice's tweets from yesterday show the reason why: it makes you look really pathetic.
Even more pathetic is the hackneyed non-apology she issued today, via a publicist, because apparently, after urging the reading public to harass her reviewer, she's taken her ball and gone home--she's deleted her twitter accounts, and the contact info on her website leads you only to agents and publicists. Because we should apparently harass reviewers, but not authors.
"I’m sorry if I offended anyone. Reviewers are entitled to their opinions and that’s the name of the game in publishing. I hope my readers understand that I didn’t mean to hurt anyone and I’m truly sorry if I did.”
Tip! Here's how you spot a fake apology: it says "I'm sorry if" not "I'm sorry that." She's not sorry that she asked fans to harass the reviewer, she's not sorry that she said crappy things about Boston, she's not sorry that she acted like a two-year-old. She's only sorry if any of this offended anyone.
Not to worry, Alice! I'm not offended! But I am sorry if I won't be reading any of your books in the future.
