Between the Covers

Hoffman apologizes for Twitter complaints

A Christian Science Monitor blog reports that novelist Alice Hoffman sort of apologized in a statement to the Boston Globe book critic she blasted for criticizing her latest novel, The Story Sisters.

Hoffman's publicist sent the following to the Monitor after the flap, reports Matthew Shaer:

"I feel this whole situation has been completely blown out of proportion. Of course I was dismayed by Roberta Silman’s review which gave away the plot of the novel, and in the heat of the moment I responded strongly and I wish I hadn’t. I’m sorry if I offended anyone. Reviewers are entitled to their opinions and that’s the name of the game in publishing. I hope my readers understand that I didn’t mean to hurt anyone and I’m truly sorry if I did."

Best advice arising from all this? Think before you tweet.

What are you reading now?

"The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly. . . . His richly textured, well researched novels are exciting and entertaining, and they provide illumination and insight into a corner of our culture, making Mr. Connelly the perfect blend of reporter and novelist. The scariest aspects of The Scarecrow don't involve serial killers, but the demise of newspapers and print journalism.''

MICHAEL LISTER, author of Double Exposure

Author encourages fans to blast critic on Twitter

Oh, Gawker. How I love you and your extremely interesting story on novelist Alice Hoffman, who was apparently not pleased with The Boston Globe's review of her new novel The Story Sisters. Furious that the reviewer Roberta Silman wrote such heinous criticism as "this new novel lacks the spark of the earlier work,"  Hoffman fired off 27 fairly psychotic Tweets blasting Silman, even going so far as to publish her email address and phone number.

I guess my question is this: How is it possible to write more than 20 novels and still become unhinged by a negative review? Odds are she's gotten a few before, just considering the sheer number of books she has written. You'd think you'd grow immune to it. I certainly don't get mad when people write to me telling me what an idiot I am for hating movies like Bride Wars and Confessions of a Shopaholic. I mean, folks: you're welcome to think that those are excellent ways to spend your limited time on earth. Really.

Is it just that Twitter makes it so easy to fire off statements when you're angry? Hard to say. I haven't been attacked on Twitter yet, though it could happen when I reveal that I didn't care much for The Story Sisters either. In fact, I only read half of it, grew weary of it and decided it wasn't worth my time.

A weekend of (literary?) movies

Two movies released in South Florida today originated as novels, and I wrote about them both. I feel it is my duty to warn you of either before you spend ten bucks to check 'em out.

First up: My Sister's Keeper, from the novel by Jodi Picoult. All you really need to know about this one is that it was directed by Nick Cassavetes, who directed and co-wrote The Notebook. And this movie, about a family dealing with a daughter with leukemia, is even more of a weeper than that one. Seriously. I think I cried for two hours. Plus, there's all the fuss with little sister Anna, who has decided to sue for medical emancipation so that she won't be forced to provide a kidney for her dying sister. Do you need to hear more? Read my review, and enter the theater at your own risk.

Second: Cheri, from two novels by French writer Colette, in which a retired courtesan (Michelle Pfeiffer) carries on and then pines for her rival's son (Rupert Friend). At my age, I applaud older woman/younger man stories, and the film is directed by Stephen Frears, whom I generally love (he did The Queen, one of my favorites of the past few years). But since Pfeiffer is about as American as apple pie, hot dogs and losing huge sums of money from your 401K, nothing ever quite feels right about this movie, not even Kathy Bates as the young man's imperious mother (also not terribly French). And this is a very French story. Read my review and then go rent Gigi instead.

The movie that intrigues me most this weekend isn't adapted from a novel, but the screenplay was written by a couple of writers I like: Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The movie is Away We Go, directed by Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road), and it's about a young couple (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) looking for a place to settle down before they have their first child. Even Herald critic Rene Rodriguez, who tends to prefer his movies loud and bloody and zombie-laden,  liked it. Read his review here.

The hard truths of "Vinegar Hill"

Vinegar Hill was A. Manette Ansay's first novel, so imagine her excitement when the family drama was chosen for Oprah's Book Club. This is why I wish Oprah would leave the classics alone - for God's sake, we all know about East of Eden already. Introduce us to writers we don't know!

Anyway, in my quest to read Ansay's earlier works, I figured I'd better investigate what it was that Oprah liked so much in the book. Like Midnight Champagne, Vinegar Hill is set in the smalltown midwest. Unlike Champagne, its mood is melancholy, festering, regretful. It's about a family that must go live with its inlaws when father James loses his job. Of course, they don't really have to stay as long as they're staying, knows his wife Ellen, the book's primary protagonist. His parents are quarrelsome and frequently nasty to their daughter, but James is adamant, stuck in some kind of time warp where he's a kid again. And Ellen suffers, though hardly quietly. It's 1972, but emancipation came late to this part of the world, and Ellen's Catholic upbringing forbids her to leave her husband. Or does it?

On a surface level, the novel is a does she or doesn't she book, but Ansay makes these characters - in particular Ellen and her daughter Amy, who bear a striking resemblance to Ansay and her own mother - come alive. And you'll be glad Ellen's inlaws aren't yours.

"The Lost Symbol" goes viral

Inventor Spot reports Random House is making use of the Internet to build hype for Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, the psychotically anticipated sequel to The Da Vinci Code. As if hype was needed; bookstores are expecting a flood of traffic come Sept. 15, when Symbol - which features Harvard-educated symbologist Robert Langdon, who looks a lot like Tom Hanks - hits the shelves.

But you can't be too safe in this lousy economy, so Random will use puzzles, games and codes to lure fans. Writes Ron Callari:

"The official website for The Lost Symbol contains links to the official Twitter and Facebook pages, which Random House says will be updated daily with a series of clues. In an email alert, the publisher promises codes, cryptic trivia, puzzles, secret history, biblical references, maps, ambigrams, aphorisms, ciphers, arcane knowledge, and more” between now and the release of the highly anticipated thriller sequel."

So get cracking on that code...

Do today's teens hate Holden Caulfield?

Great story by the New York Times on how today's kids think the once-beloved narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an overprivileged, whiny punk, not the "beautiful loser" - the writer's phrase, not mine -  we were all taught that he was. I have no way of telling if this is a generally true feeling among high school kids or whether it's merely true among the overprivileged teenagers at New York private schools or whether the writer just wanted to write this story and cherrypicked quotes to reflect the premise (hey, anything's possible, and it's a good read).

And if kids do hate Holden, does that indicate smarts and a practical sensibility, a greater interest in the underprivileged (who don't get a day to roam around the city), intellectual laziness ("we're disaffected teens, we hate everything") or merely an inability to put literature in context? Part of what made Holden special way back in the day, I was told, was that nobody had really written in that particular voice before. I never particularly liked Elvis Presley, but I still can see why a 50s teenager would be smitten. Makes you wonder...

Florida organizations get Big Read grants

The National Endowment for the Arts has announced that 269 nonprofits will receive grants totaling $3,742,765 to host Big Read celebrations between September 2009 and June 2010. The Big Read is a national literary program encouraging - what else? - reading.

Two of the organizations are in South Florida and will get $20,000 apiece: the Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade College and the Florida Center for the Book/Broward Public Library Foundation in Fort Lauderdale. Spend it wisely, we beg of you!

Seven other state organizations will also get grants of varying amounts:

Henry County Library Cooperative in Clewiston: $7,500

Communities in Schools of Putnam County Inc. in East Palatka: $7,490

Nassau County Public Library System in Fernandina Beach: $10,000

Suwannee River Regional Library in Live Oak: $4,600

Charlotte County Library System in Port Charlotte: $9,640

Martin County Board of County Commissioners in Stuart: $16,160

Hillsborough County Public Library in Tampa: $20,000

Enter the world of great "Twitterature"

Things that fall into the category of so amusing I wish I'd thought of them, except for the part where I am too old to have thought of it:

Reports Galley Cat: Two college freshman, both 19, sold Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets Or Less to Penguin.

At last, a way to read Moby-Dick. 140 characters, 20 tweets, even I can handle that.

Read the whole story here.

A little light reading for summer

Not up for the rigors of such novels as Netherland or anything else vaguely literary at the moment? Can't blame you. What with today's storms, I want to crawl into bed with comfort fiction myself (my editor would frown on such behavior, I suspect). But if you are unhindered by having to work today or the rest of the week or even the rest of the summer, we have some suggestions for you.

Herald writer (and friend of the blog) Hannah Sampson reviewed some chick fiction in Tuesday's paper, including Page Six editor Paula Froelich's Mercury in Retrograde, which has one of the more charming covers I've seen lately. Love the dog looking out of the apartment building window.

And don't start lecturing me on the fact that the phrase "chick fiction" is derogatory. It's a perfectly good phrase that communicates the genre of the book exactly. Sometimes we're just not up for Roberto Bolano, you know?