Posted 4:41 PM by Gene

"A great American Novel." [SIC!]
--Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Does anyone here remember several years ago -- when the nation's book revues were being DESTROYED!!!!!?

"...[A] powerful and brilliant book. By turns outrageously funny and deadly serious, it is always breathtakingly entertaining. It should be on everyone's shortlist."
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Today in our apartment building's "library" I found a paperback edition of a supposed comic novel.

"Well-written and almost [SIC] always amusing, [the novel] is an entertaining book from a terrific writer."
--(Toronto) Globe and Mail

It contains four-and-a-half pages of blurbs.

"A riotous good time. [The author] tells one entertaining tale."
--People magazine

Four-and-a half pages of sound-alike blurbs may convey an unintended message, a message of defensiveness, a message of making something from the nothing there -- but those four-and-a half pages certainly are.

"[The novel] reads like Richard Ford meets Carl Hiassen."
--New York magazine

And they further highlight the dangers of obsessive blurbthinking and blurbmaking -- even a merely descriptive (and possibly dismissive) one can be thrown in and can sound like a rave.

"Bittersweet (with the emphasis on 'bitter') and hilarious."
--Harper's Bazaar

Four-and-a-half pages of blurbs translates into God knows how many thousands of words, thousands of unnecessary words, thousands of advertising words, words the public doesn't need and the author will squinch at for their sniveling flattery -- but several years back the DESTRUCTION of book revues was a MORTAL THREAT to the REPUBLIC, to be prevented at ALL COSTS!!!!! The republic survived, and so did the book biz, churning out more junk than ever. If this episode proves anything it is that NOT ONE BOOK REVUER IS WORTH READING. Only Jonathan Yardley was, and he appears to have effectively retired. What's left is advertising, and we have enough of it of all sorts from NEWS HACKS, and true literature will never benefit from it. Let the sleeping dog of book revuing lie -- in a different sense.

I have not read the book and probably never will. Thank you, book revuers, for your REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY.

P. S. 3.5 stars and #375,578 in Amazon.com.