blogNo such thing as a bad review?
One reads the reviews of one’s own book with an almost pathologically close scrutiny, of course. But it’s fascinating to discover how much other people apparently just…scan.
Although Heyday is getting overwhelmingly positive notices, I’ve received multiple congratulations on even the main not-so-positive one so far, Janet Maslin’s in Monday’s New York Times. A friend forwarded an email she got about it from an English literature teacher (and book reviewer) she knows: “I thought,” the guy wrote, “that it was a pretty darn good review.” And in fact, I realized, the review could be selectively distilled to seem positive — i.e., to say that Heyday is “meticulously produced,” “conceived on a grand scale,” full of “witty present-day resonance,” “interesting,” and “playful.” Hey, thanks, lady!
The most excellent email reaction I got to the Maslin review was from my friend Seth Mnookin, the writer. “I’m not sure how I would have reacted if you’d gotten a gushing write-up from the woman who called The Da Vinci Code ‘graceful,’ and ‘a riddle-filled, code-breaking, exhilaratingly brainy thriller….[The] word is wow.’”
In any event, happily, the Sunday Times Book Review this weekend is publishing a truly darn good review of Heyday on its cover, by the wonderful and august Geoffrey Wolff, whose Duke of Deception is one of my favorite books ever.