Liz forwarded me a link to a recent post on ethics in book reviewing (from an anonymous reviewer of course) and we have been discussing it the past few days via email. The first thing I did after reading the post was go back over the reports on the recent NBCC panel at BEA on this very subject and see just where the opinions expressed in this other post diverged from those of several very prominent (and identifiable) reviewers. (Ed provided a very comprehensive round up of the NBCC panel in three parts, here, here and here.)
I'll let you be the judge but I like the Christopher's Hitchens comment Ed mentioned:
Hitch quibbled with the “permanent affectation of integrity,� because he pointed that you could diagram cross-hatchets of blurbs and easily see how everyone was connected to each other.
The question is can a person review a book if they are friends, on any level, with the author? In the post I linked to above the unnamed reviewer not only would say "no" to that question, he/she even goes several steps further:
Major papers in the U.S. have an iron-clad policy: reviewers can't meet the authors they review.
Can you meet them at a book signing? Can you pass them in a hallway? Can you be invited to the same literary function? As it turns out, apparently - hell no.
A lot of book reviewers are also writers, so we're constantly skirting conflict-of-interest issues. Causes a lot of strange silences at parties, and the occasional ducking-into-the-bathroom. Recently, I attended a book party when I probably shouldn't have. The publicist grabbed me by the arm (ouch! again) and dragged me over to an author. Unfortunately, I was reviewing his book for a major magazine. I felt I had to tell my editor. My editor felt he had to pull the review. (He was kind enough to still pay me. A lot of editors wouldn't do that.) If you sense a nervous, slightly school-marmish tone here, it's because when a publicist or author slips up, the reviewer may lose a paycheck. I don't know if I'll ever be able to review for that magazine again—-that's a chunk of change, and a bit o' prestige, that I've lost.
I'm really puzzled by this because it smacks of paranoia. A meeting at a party? "Hi, how are you? I'm a reviewer who is reviewing your current book but I haven't even read it yet so let's not talk about it okay? Let's talk about the Red Sox!!" Can you talk about anything other than THE book? Can you talk kids or weather or movies? Can you talk about the Russian Revolution or Iraq? Do we have to assume that anything a writer says - on any subject at all - is going to influence a reviewer's opinion of the their book?
Are reviewers really that easily swayed?
After this "hiding in the bathroom at parties bombshell" the reviewing piece goes downhill. How do you get a book reviewed? "Write a good book." Gee - that's helpful. All the people planning to write bad books are freaking out right now. But it still made me think. Are writers and reviewers forbidden to have contact between each other on any level at all? Wow - just wow.
To be honest, I kind of fudged things a bit with the title to this post - Cecil Castellucci, who I interviewed this month in Bookslut, and reviewed her first two books (here and here), is a friend in that very 21st century sort of way. We have never met and never spoken, but we have emailed many many times on topics varying from Superman to Logan's Run and I certainly consider her a friend in the same way as Gwenda or Jenny D. or Kelly and Jen (and on and on and on). My initial contact with Cecil was after I reviewed her first book. I send emails to all the authors and illustrators I review as a courtesy - because I know that I would like to know if there was a review up of my work. The note is no longer than a single sentence with a link and usually I just get a quick "thank you" in reply. Cecil didn't have many reviews in the beginning though so mine stood out and quite frankly we hit it off really quickly. (This makes perfect sense if you know me and have read Boy Proof.) We continued to email and comment on each other's sites in the months that followed and I requested and reviewed her second book without a second thought. I did the same for her recent titles as well.
Keep in mind though, I did this because I loved her first book and I wanted to see what she would do next. Since then, everything she has written has impressed me more than the last so I continue to review her work out of acute admiration for her talent.
I never thought I was doing something unethical through this contact (or similar contact with authors like Justine Larbalestier or Bennett Madison or most recently Nicola Griffith). I am a reader and a writer; I live, sleep and breathe books. The chance to exchange correspondence with writers - to have "conversations" with them about their books is very important to me. It's one of the best things that has come out of this site and my reviewing work.
But, does emailing about writing with any of these authors make it impossible for me to impartially review their work?
It's an interesting issue. I would never review a book by a family member or close friend ("Close friend" is not someone I sat next to in elementary school and haven't seen since 1978) but someone who I have no intimate personal attachment to - someone who doesn't know the name of my child or what my house looks like or could even explain what I do for a living? Can I really feel compelled to write nice things about their work because we both like comic books? It's kind of like saying that the waitress who pours your juice at the local cafe could influence you, or your kid's soccer coach, or the guy at the local nursery who spent a half hour talking about ferns.
Really, must we live in a literary bubble in order to maintain our integrity?
if that's the price this unnamed unknown reviewer happily pays then good for him or her but I won't have it. For the record I have been asked by people I know to review their books and I have said no. Sometimes because they are too close and sometimes because the book just isn't for me. The point there is that liking Cecil or not, I wouldn't review her books if I didn't like her writing.
See there is the difference - separate the person from their writing.
Really though, this is all just an intellectual argument for me. I exchange emails with many writers, some of whom have written books that I review (and might review again in the future). Again, it all comes down to trust. I have to think that my readers know me well enough by now to trust that my opinion is always and only about the book. That is the way that I inhabit the literary world - it's the way I need to inhabit the literary world. Someone else can write reviews for the major (also unnamed) newspapers. I'll be too busy hanging out with authors, reading good books and writing my heart out to miss anything.
June 13
2007
03:59 AM
I posted about this (sorta) a long time ago:
http://bondgirl.blogspot.com/2005/02/saturday-morning-throat-clearing.html
A good friend recently put conflict of interest to me as "you've slept with the person or plan to soon."