I’ve started off 2024 with two publications—my only ones on the docket for the year beyond my story in David Small’s illustrated collection The Werewolf at Dusk. First, I have a short story about housing, apps, and paranoia called “The Good Building” in the new issue of The Southern Review.
Second, I have a review of Mark Anthony Jarman’s Burn Man in the New York Times. Burn Man is a selected anthology of stories from across Jarman’s decades of publications. If you haven’t read Jarman before—as I hadn’t—I compare his searing, lush stories to Barry Hannah and Denis Johnson. I was really taken with Jarman’s work, and was especially happy to get to rave about a relatively unknown (in America) author and a book on an independent press.
The review was also nicely rounded-up in Bookmarks’ “5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week” feature, which I found especially gratifying because—if I’m being honest—I find book reviews very difficult to write.
First, there’s the constraint of discussing an entire book and author in a few hundred words (400-800 is pretty standard). But another weirdness to book reviews is that you are writing for at least two different audiences. Your review will be read by people who are unfamiliar with the book and reading in part decide if they’re interested in buying it. And you are writing for readers who have read the book and want to see what critics are saying. (I like to read a book blind and form my own opinion so I mostly read reviews after I’ve read a novel. I think lots of readers are the same.) There’s an additional duty to the author—even or perhaps especially when the review is highly critical—to accurately represent their work. All of this leads to book reviews feeling, for me, like a weird Frankenstein monster. A little bit of summary for the potential reader, a bit of critical analysis for those who’ve already read, some quotes to faithfully represent the author, etc. Somehow that has to be all stitched together in a coherent form in a few hundred words.
It’s tough. Not boo hoo pity me tough, just harder than most other non-fiction forms for me. On the other hand, it is rewarding to recommend a book to a wider audience, especially when you loved it and/or the author is relatively unknown and/or the press is small.
Since one of the goals of this newsletter is publishing demystification, and since I’m often asked about how book reviews work, maybe I should talk a little more about book reviewing. Students and colleagues sometimes ask me if I pitch the New York Times the books that I review. I don’t. Other authors may, but I can only handle a couple reviews a year with my other work—again, they’re hard for me!—and every review I’ve written for the NYT has been assigned to me by the editors with one exception. Some years ago I pitched a review of a Syrian author I admired (but didn’t know personally) named Osama Alomar. My editor added on a few more books by authors I was unfamiliar with to make a four-book shortlist review. Otherwise, the books have been assigned to me.
I mention this because people like to grumble about book reviews being cronyism and favoritism and untrustworthy. That isn’t how they work in my experience. Indeed, book reviews are one of the rare publishing spaces largely free of that. Which is one reason it’s sad that book review sections keep dwindling. Blurbs are often connections, publicity is paid for, and buzz tends to be a bit of both, but professional book reviews aren’t either. Indeed, the New York Times and similar venues specifically ask you to turn down the assignment if you have any connection to the author. If you know them or share an agent or work at the same college or anything like that you have to pass.
Most reviewers I know follow this principle even at venues that don’t specify it. I’ve never reviewed a book by a friend or colleague except in a professional venue. Only in this personal newsletter, and I disclose that fact. This is simply professionalism. But I’d be lying if there wasn’t also a self-preservation aspect. Authors can take things, uh, a bit personally. Even a mixed or mostly positive review could lose you a colleague or friend.
As for advice for becoming a book reviewer? The usual advice for any writing applies: read a lot of the form and get a feel for what you admire or dislike. More practically, it can never hurt to “work your way up the ladder” so to speak. Pitch to smaller, low paying places and then use those clips to pitch to medium, better paying places, and then use those clips to pitch to the biggest venues. I’m not saying the quality of reviews is necessarily better at big newspapers than small websites of course. The opposite can be true. But if your interest in book reviewing includes needing to pay your rent, the bigger venues do (unsurprisingly) pay more. Beyond that, my best advice is to do good work (duh) but also, I’d stress, turn in clean copy. Speaking as an editor, there are few things editors love more than an author who is easy to work with and turns in polished and error-free work.
If you like this newsletter, consider subscribing or checking out my recent science fiction novel The Body Scout that The New York Times called “Timeless and original…a wild ride, sad and funny, surreal and intelligent.”
Other works I’ve written or co-edited include Upright Beasts (my story collection), Tiny Nightmares (an anthology of horror fiction), and Tiny Crimes (an anthology of crime fiction).
These are great tips! Just to add some resources that have helped me…I started pitching and writing book reviews last year, and I found @Adam Morgan’s Twitter thread really useful https://twitter.com/adamm0rgan/status/1333462470015455236?lang=en as well as the National Book Critics Circle's list of publications https://www.bookcritics.org/publications/
There are a few places that publish really great literary criticism and specifically invite newer writers to pitch them—my first byline was with the Cleveland Review of Books (https://twitter.com/clereviewbooks) and their editors are super kind, thoughtful, and perceptive
Congrats on the pubs! And yeah, reviews are (imho) the hardest thing to write, for the fewest readers, and for the worst pay. It's been a few years now since I've even written one, but I need to pub a few this year to scratch the itch!