Many of the greatest works of literature – Emily Dickinson’s and Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry, John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” – didn’t make it past the slush piles of their times, and it is only by a fortunate concatenation of circumstances that we have them. We don’t know what other great writing has been lost forever.
Patrick Murtha – 25 August 2015
About Reviewing
How did you get started?
I have loved reading ever since I demanded my grandfather to teach me when I was all of three years old. I developed an interest in criticism by reading writers like Pauline Kael and James Agee (movies), Arnold Bennett (books), Kenneth Tynan (theater), and Andrew Porter (classical music) in high school. I did some paid movie reviewing in my 20s, which was useful for practice but I wasn’t very good yet. Now, in my 50s, I feel like I’ve got things to say and the prose tools to say them. I’ve been blogging and making critical comments here and there for a number of years, but recently decided to launch a new blog, Book ‘em, Danno!, that would be more focused on reviews of independent books and films, along with offering general cultural commentary.
How do you review a book? Is it a read first, and then make notes, or do you make notes as you go along?
I make notes as I go, and take note of passages I want to quote. I do a quick pass through the book again after I have finished it, and make additional notes then; allow the review to take shape in my head; and then sit down to commit it to the screen.
What are you looking for?
To be stimulated! And I try to be very open as to how that will happen.
I am focusing on indie books, both fiction and non-fiction, which go beyond the usual genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, YA, and romance. That’s not to say that I will never review books in those genres – in fact, the two most positive book reviews I’ve written for the new blog so far were of a science fiction comedy and a literary fantasy. But I am very selective in those genres; I am looking for literary ambition. Crime fiction, I am more open to overall.
In general, the more “ambitious” a book is in literary or scholarly terms, the more likely it is that I will want to review it. I don’t mean that to sound snobbish – although truth be told, I am a bit of an elitist – it’s just where my interests lie. And there are not that many indie reviewers giving these books much love or attention.
I intend to give any book I review a professional-quality write-up of the type you’d find in the New York Times or the New Yorker. The authors deserve it.
If a book has a great plot, great characters, but the grammar is less than perfect, how do you deal with that?
I would make note of that in my review, but would try to focus on the good points. If I decide that I simply can’t persevere with a flawed book to the end, because life is short and time is limited, I let the writer know with regrets that I’m not the best reviewer for the book. If I do finish the book, I will write about it in as encouraging a manner as I can. I dislike hatchet jobs, although I will allow myself to be a little harsher with a mainstream publication. Mainstream books are or should be vetted heavily, and can take more critical firepower.
If I cannot finish a book but picked up some ideas for comments from the portion that I did read, I might incorporate those in the blog without referencing a title or author by name. For example, I wrote a post on language and dialogue issues in self-published science fiction which was prompted by a book I could not finish. I kept my comments quite general and did not expose the author to ridicule, but I was glad to be able to put my ideas out there.
How long does it take you to get through, say, an eighty thousand-word book?
Maybe four or five days right now, because I’ve got a lot else on my plate. But I am trying to get faster all the time, because my reviewing queue has rapidly gotten quite long, and there are also many books I want to read and write about that have not been submitted to me and aren’t in that queue. For example, I go scouting at eReaderiQ for interesting-sounding books that are being offered for free that day at Amazon. I also need to keep up with my reading of classic literature, and contemporary books issued by mainstream publishers.
How did you come up with your rating system, and could you explain more about the rating system?
I don’t use a rating system at my own blog; I’m not a big fan of them. But at Amazon, LibraryThing, and Goodreads, I use their 5-star rating system, just as I use the 10-star system at the IMDB. My ratings are on the generous side. I am not really that difficult to please.
What advice could you give to authors looking to get their books reviewed?
Write a polite email to the reviewer. Do not send out a mass emailing to reviewers; I’ve received those, and am put off by them. This is Indy Land; a personal touch is called for.
If a requesting author has obviously looked at my blog and the Review Guidelines there, of course that is flattering and a plus.
I make many requests myself, writing to publishers, film production companies, and DVD distributors asking for materials I am interested in reviewing. So I work both sides of this equation.
Do you get readers emailing you and thanking you for a review?
Not yet. I have gotten “Helpful” votes for my Amazon reviews over the years, as I imagine everyone does.
On the other hand, I have many energetic and delightful correspondences with authors now. I cherish those. They don’t in the least detract from my objectivity in reviewing; on the contrary, they give me added insights into the writers’ processes.
My advice to authors on getting a ‘bad’ review (hasten to add that might mean a perfectly honest, well written, fair review – just bad from the author’s point of view) is to take what you can from it and move on. Under no circumstances to ‘argue’ with the reviewer – would you agree with that?
I don’t think that arguing in public is generally a good idea. If there are factual inaccuracies in a review, you might point that out to the reviewer. I would make corrections if I erred, and we all err sometimes, since we are all human.
About Reading
We talk a lot about writing here on the blog, and possibly not enough about reading, which is after all why we’re all here. Why do you think people love reading? We’re seeing lots of statistics that say reading as a pastime is dying – do you think that’s the case?
The same electronics that disable literature also enable it. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, the Internet in general – they do dumb down discourse, but they also provide a way for readers around the world to share their enthusiasms and to become more intense about them. Since we can’t wish the technologies away, I’ll take the good and try as much as possible to ignore the bad.
I was a high school teacher for many years. The average student barely reads at all now. Articles daunt them, let alone full-length books! But the passionate readers are more involved than ever. I’ve known high school seniors who were reading their way through Virginia Woolf and Haruki Murakami, bless them.
The Republic of Letters is always a minority, but I think it will continue to be a vigorous minority. And it is open to everyone.
About Writing
What are the most common mistakes that you see authors making?
What I have been noticing more than anything is that new novelists will cast versions of themselves as the lead characters in their books, and then write of those protagonists with excessive self-regard while simultaneously denying fully rounded personhood to every other character in the story. This happens even in books that I like. I would encourage new novelists to get over themselves.
We’re told that the first page, paragraph, chapter, is absolutely key in making or breaking a book. Agents typically request only the first five pages of a novel; what do you think about that? If a book hasn’t grabbed you by the first five pages, do you put it down?
I am more patient than that. If a book is really not for me, I might abandon it after 30 or 50 pages, but not five! Five pages is not a fair shot.
Is there anything you will not review?
Sure. Usually, genre writing that is not pushing the boundaries of the genre leaves me cold, although again, for some reason I cut crime writing more slack. (Actually, I do know the reason – I think the average quality of indie crime fiction is way higher than that of indie science fiction or fantasy.)
But there is so much I WILL review that other reviewers don’t seem to be asking for. Serious drama, local history, cultural studies, literary short stories, and so on – I love all that material, and I applaud authors who have ambitions in those areas. The Review Guidelines at my blog go into great detail about my interests.
About Publishing
What do you think of the oft-quoted comment that the “slush-pile has moved online”?
Many of the greatest works of literature – Emily Dickinson’s and Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces – didn’t make it past the slush piles of their times, and it is only by a fortunate concatenation of circumstances that we have them. We don’t know what other great writing has been lost forever.
So, while I understand the nostalgia for “gatekeepers,” I would rather have everything out there and be able to sort through it. It gives me something to do, for sure!
Do you think attitudes are changing with respect to indie or self-published titles?
Maybe a little. Shrewd authors / self-promoters such as J.A. Konrath have had great success in pushing against ingrained prejudices, and I tip my hat to them.
People like external markers of success, including conventional publication, partly because those function in a gatekeeper-ish way, and partly because they like associating with success and popularity. People like inside baseball talk, too, for the same reasons. There is a lot of herd mentality out there, and I think it has gotten worse. College students in the 70s discovered little films all the time; college students in the 10s just want to see “Age of Ultron.” Chris Anderson’s wonderful concept of “the long tail,” which I heartily support, has proven largely fallacious in practice. The Internet fosters a greater concentration on the most popular content. The “winner take all” paradigm is more pervasive than ever.
But there is some wiggle-room nonetheless, and it is a pleasure to be operating in that space.
Do you have any ideas or comments on how the industry can ‘filter’ good from bad, aside from reviews?
I don’t have any faith in “the industry.” In any industry, really.
End of Interview:
Read Patrick’s reviews at Book’em Danno!
