Glam Scam

     Yikes! Poor Darin Strauss, whose novel, More Than It Hurts You, I've admired in these pages, is featured in The Village Voice as an author who has been burned (and lived to tell the tale) by blog commenters who never actually read his book. I followed the discussion over at LROD where Strauss first became entangled, after which the blog owner did the right thing and planned a discussion of the book on a certain day -- so as to give the commenters time to actually read the thing. Despite the host's good intentions, the book discussion was a bust. Seems most of the people who'd dissed the author didn't care to do the work of backing up their opinions.

     Anyway, the Village Voice article highlights the difficulties of 21st Century noveling. It's not hard enough to write a novel, and to get an agent, and a book contract, and see it published and marketed, perhaps even with a book tour, underfunded though it probably is. No, in this cynical, snide, e-anonymous era, an author must also negotiate (or not) ignorant missives from assholes with keyboards. Success enjoys its own company only for a short time before it devolves into a target for the loudest and crudest and least likely to succeed. 

     Nobody ever said writing was an especially glamorous business, but yeesh. Sorry this happened to a good guy like Darin Strauss. Sorry it happens to any writer who's achieved what most, if not all, writers strive for.