Black Static

I can't remember exactly what was said, and I'm not fussed enough about quoting verbatim to devote a couple of hours to finding the book to check, but in his memoir Palimpsest Gore Vidal wrote something to the effect that, while he was happy to blurb the work of a friend, he wouldn't go so far as to write a positive review of a work he didn't like just to oblige them. I'd pretty much agree with that, except that I'd also think long and hard before blurbing somebody. I've written an introduction to Rachel Kendall's excellent collection The Bride Stripped Bare, but other than that I've refused any requests for blurbs that have come my way, not that there have been many such (surprisingly Stephen King is not nagging me for an endorsement, even though it would undoubtedly boost his sales). Of course writers and publishers are always welcome to quote from any of my reviews, and some of them actually do on occasion.

There are good reasons for declining to review a friend, not least the danger of jeopardising a relationship (from memory, Vidal was writing in the context of a soured relationship with Tennessee Williams). More significantly from the viewpoint of both the reviewer and reviewee it's a no win situation. Any praise invites the comment that 'you would say that about a mate' while criticism cuts deeper than for somebody with whom you have no relationship ('even your friends say your work is crap'). The reviewee has little to gain beyond an endorsement from somebody whose objectivity can be called into question because of the friendship, and much to lose from a reviewer whose integrity is such that they won't give even a friend a free pass. Spin is everything.

Unfortunately it's not as simple as just saying that you won't review the work of friends.

In the age of the internet, where you gain a new best mate every other day courtesy of myspace and facebook, the real problem is deciding who your friends actually are, as opposed to acquaintances with a shared interest in literature, business associates etc. And of course, within the milieu of the small/indie press, most friendships have their root in admiration for a writer's work - something strikes a chord in the sensitivity of the reader, and naturally enough we seek out the person who has had this effect, strive to make a human contact - and so there is no reason to doubt that any praise given is genuinely felt. To contradict myself somewhat, it is almost impossible to avoid reviewing work by people with whom you are friends in some sense of the word. The dilemma for a conscientious reviewer is to judge when the line gets crossed, and objectivity may be compromised by the quite understandable desire to please a friend, to help their career progress. Does the work genuinely have merit, or do we only feel that way because we like the author? It's something that each individual reviewer has to make up their own minds about.

(In parenthesis and from a personal viewpoint, I should explain that if the situation ever arises where I feel I can't review objectively because of my friendship with a writer, then I'll stand down and ask Andy to arrange for a guest reviewer to do the job. People needn't stop replying to my emails, sending me Christmas and birthday cards etc out of a fear that if we get too chummy they'll never get reviewed in Black Static.)

Equally, enemies if you have any (and most of us do), are people you should avoid reviewing, for pretty much the same reasons. A positive review will carry more weight than it should because of the personal antipathy, or be seen as some form of peace offering or conciliatory gesture, rather than taken at face value, while a negative review invites the criticism that it's personal, an attempt at payback for some slight, imagined or otherwise. Personal dislike of an individual doesn't preclude a genuine appreciation of their work (in an ideal world the two should be separate things), but there is always going to be the suspicion that other considerations come into play, just as there are always people who will insist that vintage champagne is just sour grapes in a bottle with a fancy label.

I wouldn't classify them as enemies, but I also think it's a good idea to avoid reviewing future work by people who have reacted badly to your reviews in the past. It's rare, but on occasion you get the odd writer who will throw all their toys out of the pram when you fail to recognise their genius, and in such cases I feel it's best to avoid their work completely. I say that not because I'm a vindictive bastard who wants to deny a writer future reviews in Black Static or elsewhere (that's just a fringe benefit), but because, as with the situations above, it's too easy for the reviewer's motives to be misconstrued - a good review could be seen as arising out of the desire to pacify and/or avoid any further flame war, and a bad review might be regarded as payback. Either way, the reviewer can't win.

I guess what I'm really saying in all this, is that it's not enough for reviewers to be impartial and objective. It's equally important for them to be seen as impartial and objective, to put themselves and their work in a place where it can't be twisted into something other than they intended.

As far as writer backlashes go I've got off relatively lightly - plenty of spats, but little of any major concern. Other reviewers haven't been as lucky, and if you want an example of a writer's reaction that is totally out of proportion to the imagined slight then I suggest you google Kevin W. Reardon.

I've heard the suggestion that reviewers as a group should boycott the work of such individuals and deprive their careers of the oxygen of feedback. And it's understandable if, having seen other reviewers subjected to abuse, anyone wanted to avoid putting themselves in the crosshairs of such people. The problem is that any such boycott could never be total, and in such a scenario the possibility exists that it would only be the negative voices that maintained review silence. And of course acting like a complete and utter idiot when responding to a negative review, doesn't necessarily mean that a writer's work will be without merit, only that they can't deal with criticism in a mature way.

On such grounds I have to say that, should it ever cross my path, I would be willing to review the work of the temper tantrum kiddies of the internet age of letters, as long as I personally haven't been attacked by them, and I would try to be fair in whatever assessment I made. Of course I can't guarantee that my opinions wouldn't be informed by the knowledge of their past churlish behaviour, and logically I suppose I should debar myself from reviewing their work as I did with the people above. It's just that in the case of writers like this, while I would try to be fair, if things pan out otherwise then I'm sorry, but I simply don't give a shit. It's stuff they should have thought about before they decided to let their egos run away with them. Consequences, my dears.

Okay, we're done. I shall now mount my black stallion and ride off into the sunset whistling the tune of Tina Turner's R-E-S-P-E-C-T as I go. And when I return no doubt I'll have an Inbox full of mail from writers who want to know if the fact that I reviewed them in Black Static means that I don't like them as people (insert laughing emoticon here).