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Editors'
Note: As of Monday, June 29, 2009, the Twitter page mentioned
in this article no longer exists. Those of you who missed
Alice Hoffman's rants against Roberta Silman can still see
several of the tweets at Gawker.com.
We'd like to thank Gawker for having the foresight to copy
and paste these rants before Hoffman's Twitter account went
missing.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Dear
Roberta Silman,
Just
a few hours ago, I stumbled onto the Twitter page of novelist
Alice Hoffman and learned of your unfavorable review of her
latest book, The Story Sisters. I am sure by now that
you've heard that soon after The Boston Globe published
your article,
Ms. Hoffman bemoaned to the tweeting world the "hatchet job"
you had written about her novel. Her feelings were so hurt,
in fact, that she couldn't even spell words properly as she
posted your e-mail address and phone number, instructing her
readers, "Tell her what u think of snarky critics."
 |
| Alice
Hoffman is such an important writer that she gets her
author photos taken at Sears. |
I've
read your review, Mrs. Silman, and quite frankly, I'm appalled.
How dare you use such subtlety of language and cleverness
of tone as to insult Alice Hoffman without the rest of the
literate world even noticing. Despite a thorough reading of
your article, I couldn't find a modicum of sarcasm—disrespectful
or otherwise—in the entire piece, nor did I ever think
you were writing a "hatchet job." For a while, I was fooled
into believing you a fan of Hoffman's work, as you went out
of your way to note the book's effective passages and to compliment
Hoffman's gift for "precise prose and the ability to create
sympathetic characters" before explaining that The Story
Sisters does not live up to the author's talent. I thought
your critical skills logical and honest as you bolstered your
critiques with examples of Hoffman's poor character development
and avoidance of conflict—all such basic flaws that I
should've realized you were being ironic.
Admittedly,
I was flummoxed by the end of the review. I thought your critiques
were so mild as to be forgettable—little more than small
slaps on Hoffman's wrist (undoubtedly the one connected to the
fist she has been shaking at you). But surely, a bestselling
author such as Alice Hoffman is beyond such rudimentary mistakes
as "too much of it is told rather than shown." And if the author
herself took the time to rail against you, you had to be saying
something eviscerating. After all, with about 30 published books
to her name, Hoffman is too experienced to act like an amateur
at her first writing workshop: too arrogant to acknowledge her
errors and too wounded to heed the critiques, stamping her feet
and pitching a fit over so many minor critiques that she herself
reveals—even magnifies—her work's shortcomings, thus
doing far more damage than the critique itself.
I realize
now that you were being dishonest in your article: You don't
actually believe that Hoffman has talent, and she didn't
actually fail to deliver on several basic skills of storytelling.
You were, as Hoffman's tweet stated, being snarky. Upon further
inspection of your review, I have even discovered levels of
malice I had never before seen in journalism. At your most
negative, you profess an "annoyance bordering on anger" at
a paragraph that you claim undermines the plot and the character
arc. But I've read the paragraph in question, Mrs. Silman,
and I cannot believe that the paragraph you quoted was written
by Hoffman. It is such a grammatical nightmare that it needs
to be read half a dozen times simply to parse it. Only then
can readers reaffirm that, yes, it is as tedious, cheesy,
and coma-inducing as they thought during that first incomprehensible
read. Surely, it is too much of an embarrassment for an author
as accomplished as Alice Hoffman even to consider publishing!
I can only conclude that you have falsified your information
in order to slander Ms. Hoffman's good name. For shame.
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| Roberta
Silman, Queen of Snark. |
Perhaps
the problem is, as Hoffman insinuates, that you aren't smart
enough or qualified enough to read her books. After all, a story's
faults are not a reflection of the author's ability to convey
ideas adeptly but of the reader's inability to understand it.
In one of her tweets, she gripes: "Now any idiot can be a critic.
Writers used to review writers. My second novel was reviewed
by Ann Tyler. [sic] So who is Roberta Silman?"
And really,
who are you, Mrs. Silman, other than a published author whose
fiction has appeared in such minor publications as The
New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The
Virginia Quarterly Review, and Mademoiselle?
What makes you think that your book's PEN/Hemingway honorable
mention and two works featured in Best American Short Stories
makes you a decent writer, never mind one qualified to understand
the lofty prose of Alice Hoffman? Haven't you heard that Hoffman's
reader base consists entirely of Pulitzer Prize winners such
as Anne Tyler? What made you think that mere plebians such
as yourself have the talent or the right even to insinuate
that Hoffman is capable of generating anything but literary
gold?
So now,
Mrs. Silman, I suggest that rethink your approach to reviewing.
We, the literary critics of America are counting on you to
uphold our journalistic integrity. Remember the rules: Only
say nice things about books, never give examples lest you
give away the plot, and for the love of James Wood, never
use snark or sarcasm! Above all, don't give out your phone
number because crazy, vindictive middle-aged authors just
might post it on the internet. I mean, seriously, you were
just asking for your privacy to be violated. As Hoffman so
eloquently explained in her tweet, "You open the door and
it's open."
xoxo,
Yennie
Cheung
Editor, The Hipster Book Club
(July,
2009)
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