Why I Write The Kinds of Book Reviews I Write or, What Happened To Book Reviews Of Contemporary Literature?

In my writing lifetime, I’ve published probably maybe 100, maybe 200 reviews of contemporary literature of various lengths and in different contexts. And of those reviews, maybe at most ten of them have been more negative than positive, maybe because I mostly prefer to write about books I mostly like.

As might be expected, those ten more negative reviews received much more attention than any of the others and made people angry, usually not the writer, but sometimes, and more often friends of the writer or professional editors. In at least one case I can think of, I seem to have inadvertently made a permanent enemy of one editor who rejected me for all further work for the journal, not that I cared that much really.

It was around the time that I learned how much that one editor hated me (a person I’ve never met) that I stopped trying to place reviews in publications and turned to reviewing books only on my blog or sometimes in publications at the request of others. But I’ve never again queried anyone about accepting a book review. Maybe I was tired of it, didn’t feel a need to do it anymore. I still do publish quite a few reviews or mentions of other books though, but I don’t ask for publication permission anymore. That part just doesn’t seem worth it.

But the thing I also realized was that the world of professional book reviewing of contemporary literature didn’t have much use for even minimal levels of honesty. Book reviews are most of the time no more than promotions for a book, except in the hands of a very small number of reviewers who keep their role as professional haters, a position I didn’t want either. I’m not asserting the value of “objectivity” in reviewing because I know there’s no such thing. But there’s just not much opportunity for independence of thought.

I say all this because sometimes, these days, people will ask what happened to book reviews of contemporary literature? Reviews still exist, obviously, but there aren’t nearly as many as some writers might like. But along with the problem of finding an audience for reading reviews, the literary field is too closed in on itself, too small and threatened in its very existence, to have more than a few options for thoughtful, honest, independent reviews. Most reviews are reviews of books written by people who know the writer, or know friends of the writer, or are known as enemies of the writer.

So what, really, is in it for the book reviewer of the work of literature by a living author? It doesn’t improve your own position as a writer in the world, most of the time, to talk about somebody else’s book. It gets you a few murmurs of thanks if you say something positive and some significant hostility if you don’t. Maybe if you do something for somebody, they’ll do something for you; that’s about the best aspect of it.

Oh well. I’m still going to write about books when I feel like it, which is sometimes. But if you’re looking for one reason (among several) why book reviewing in contemporary literature has faded, look no further than the desires for success with which the field is saturated, and which no one in the field stands in any clear space outside.