Review of the The Martian

Like a lot of people I wait for the movies I want to see to come out on cable. Sorry but the theatre is cost prohibitive. The Martian was on Buy Status and then finally it changed to Rent. Beautiful. So I stayed up late after the kids and the wife had gone to bed for Sci Fi indulgence. Alien. Blade Runner. Ridley Scott. Abyss. 2001. The Martian would not disappoint. Ah well, It turned out The Martian really was about someone on another planet namely Ridley Scott.

 The movie was a bore. Matt Damon gets left behind and  has to hack it out. The most memorable scene was Matt planting potatoes with left behind human excrement. After that it goes downhill. Jeff Bridges is the litmus test of hammy lines. How many times can people say "lets get our boy" or "bring him home." The engagement of the audience in this movie is non existent. And there is the music.Disco. Why oh why did Ridley think 70s disco music would get him over the hump of suspension of disbelief? It doesn't. But we have to suffer through Bowies Major Tom along with Donna Summers Hot Stuff.

All that aside the movie was as dead as the martian soil. The  ending was not only not believable but laughably stupid. Oh well. Next up Revenant and Tarratinos Western. The wait begins.

www.williamhazelgrove.com 

No More Bad Reviews

As per a New York Times article Buzzfeed will no longer feature bad reviews. The writer of the article seemed to veer back and forth between thinking this was a good idea and then finishing up with a dig at the whole concept. My thinking is it is the final evolution in the idea the Internet fostered long ago  has taken hold big time....anybody can be anything without any sort of work at all. Or like grade school we all get a ribbon for trying. There are no losers in T ball

Taking the first concept though lets face it you want to be a rock and roll star then burn a CD. You want to be a writer publish a book on Amazon. Boom. You are the writer or the rock star  or both. The point is the message is look you really don't have to pay your dues at all just start. The only bummer in this equation was that people would evaluate your work in the form of a review. At least if you became a writer they would. What a drag.

Someone would actually say if they thought it was any good. And what purpose does this serve? Buzzfeed thinks it serves no purpose. Maybe. But of course the message that we are all the same and all have the same talent is furthered by this sort of everybody gets a star for trying motif. Lets face it we are reviewed every day. We lose jobs. We get divorced. We sink into bankruptcy. We lose our homes. Or we become fabulously wealthy or famous. Another sort of review.

So why the hands off on a a literary review? Sorry. If you pick up the pen then someone is going to review it and it might be bad. What does this do? It lets you know where you rank and how much work you have to do. Yes there are bad bad reviews but there is generally some truth lurking out there somewhere. It all comes down I guess to if you just want a ribbon for trying...

Or a trophy for winning.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

How Paid Reviews Have Hurt Everyone

 I have a Publishers Weekly review coming out on Monday. All five of my books have been reviewed by PW. I never paid for one. Of course you really couldn't pay for any until recently. My career was built by a starred review for my second novel Tobacco Sticks. I was virtually unknown and then one starred review in PW and wham. Movie sale. Paperback auction with seventeen publishers. . Book of the Month Club. Foreign Rights. Two book deal with Bantam  with nice advances. So...what is the situation now with a PW review.

Well when I posted the advance PW review someone asked me if I had paid for the review. I took offence. Of course not! But when I received my Kirkus review the same question came from someone else. Again I was offended. I would never pay for any review. It is not in my DNA. But the point is a lot of people do and because of this the reviews themselves have been hurt. Publishers Weekly has PW Select and Kirkus has a  program as well. So people who want to shell out some coin can get some sort of review.

But the damage is done to everyone. Publishers Weekly was the gatekeeper before. If you received a review in PW and it was good then everyone took this as a nod that this was a special book. I can attest because it happened to me. But now some people question the review itself. Doesn't everyone pay for reviews now? No. They don't. But it doesn't matter. People are having a hard time believing that a book can actually carry its own weight.

So if you get a review in PW or Kirkus the old fashioned way then you should feel very good about it and if someone asks if you paid for the review. Push out your chest and scream HELL NO!!!That should leave no doubt.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have.

 

Paying For Reviews

Someone asked me the other day if I paid for my review in Kirkus. I did not. But the review was very good and the assumption was that I did pay for it. Which brings up the whole thing of paying for reviews. Lets face it the dam has been opened and we are now awash in authors willing to pay for just about anything to get their books noticed. You cannot blame them but these type of reviews along with the people who pop up with hundreds of Amazon reviews do not really help the cause. The truth is books are still sold by word of mouth or word of internet.

Lets start here with this. People envy money but they admire talent. Money can get you a lot of things and people want those things. We do envy the guy with the Porche or the guy with the nice house or nice boat or nice anything. We want those things too. But we don't admire the person. In fact we might detest the rich person. Look at the way the one percent is treated. We certainly don't admire the rich people but we sure envy them. So it is in the literary world.

We envy bestsellers. Who would not. But we admire a talented writer. We admire them when we read their books and we know that only a few people can do this. It is the way we feel when we read Fitzgerald or Faulkner or David Foster Wallace. There is something there has nothing to do with money. Since Fitzgerald died broke it must be something beyond the monetary. It is talent. And all the paid for reviews and ads and shoutouts and blitzing will not give us that admiration.

There are some things believe it or not that money cannot buy.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

On Marketing Books: The Powers That Be Part II: By the Boards

The biggest shock comes when you get your first real media hit. You have been a one man band doing everything you can and then finally something breaks. You long ago gave up any idea of a publicist, they are expensive and they aren't that good a lot of times. The really good ones are extremely expensive. So you take it all on. You do the calling and the sending and the searching and you do it every day. And now you aren't even writing anymore. You have become this monk of a marketer who busts ass every day and you make nothing,

But a break. For me it was People Magazine. My book had come out with a press so small it only had one book. But there it was in People. Game over. I remember walking down a beach thinking it had not been such a hard climb after all. Just ten years of blood sweat and tears. But not so fast. That blip of demand is enough to push you onto the Bestseller List for a week. But then just as quickly you fall back down and the demand goes back to a trickle.

So you go back to it. And things are changing again. The bookstores that never even carried your books are dying. The internet is taking over. The ebooks are pushing up. You hear of people who sell a million books without a single review. A girl in Peoria uploads her fantasy novel and wham. A bestseller. She gets a check for a million dollars and buys her parents a home. This makes it almost worse. Could it be that everything you have been doing for publicity and reviews doesn't matter anymore?

Has the brave new world of Eat What You Kill just bypassed traditional publishing in a way that turns selling books into a lottery upload? Should you just be pumping out books the way someone pumps dimes into a slot machine?

Next On Marketing Books: Eat What You Kill Publishing

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher --Sometimes a Dream is all you have

On Marketing Books: Bestsellers Dont Magically Happen Part I

Yeah. People still expect you to do it effortlessly. A man I know asked why I market my own books. I told him all authors have to market their own books. He said I must not be with a real publisher. But most people still think bestsellers just magically happen and authors are sitting on the left bank drinking absinthe and thinking about their next novel while it magically flies off the shelf. And everyone nods like yeah its an Indie world now but the powers that be are still shocked when authors market their own work. They are still stupefied to find writers acting like salesmen.

Because people want to believe that literary prowess is enough. They want to believe that cream rises to the top and that a good book will carry the day. It just aint true. Good books get buried all the time. Good books die a thousand deaths and no one even hears them.  Do we really believe a good book can make enough noise on its own against the titanic forces of mass culture. The internet?

But this belief persists. I run across it all the time. A lot of people just cant believe an author has to get down in the trenches and they are shocked when they realize there are no publicists and handlers and all those people that used to do all the work for authors. Well they are long gone and authors have to do it all.

Even when I was with Bantam I had to do it all. Even more. What is amazing is that the people  still just don't get it. They just see the bestseller.

Part II
Guerrilla marketing on the boards.

Fiction with an agenda or why I couldnt' finish "The Shack"

Novels have to have some sort of moral standing. Not that they have to moralize, but the writer has to be honest with his readers and take them along for the ride. The ride should not be clearly marked. There should be different places where the writer and the reader are surprised. There should be discoveries and clues and honest epiphanies. In short the reader should be as entertained as the writer. Saying all that there is another type of fiction out there that hides under the guise of honest story telling. It is writing with an agenda.

In reading The Shack the agenda stopped me cold. I just couldn't continue on after I got hit over the head with religiosity. This was clearly marked in the beginning but I took a shot and read up to about page one hundred the tragic story of a girl abducted and murdered. The problems begin when the main character goes to meet God in The Shack. It becomes a proselytizing affair and worse it becomes hackneyed and a polemic for why there is a God and why bad things still happen.

Fair enough to write a treatise on the existence of God. But to dress up fiction as a vehicle for this kind of message is disingenuous and worse it violates the tenants of fiction. It is a rigged game and we know where it is going and so the interest wanes. In The Shack, the authors (three of them) come out from behind the curtain and let us know that there is a God and bad things do happen. I felt like I was reading Tuesdays with Morrie or any of the other quasi existential drugstore fare for the everyman. Pop psychology is surely the second cousin of THE GREAT QUESTION books browsed while waiting to check out.

The problem is this is thin gruel if you do have great questions. This is something dressed up in a package to sell, but never really deliver the goods. The first part of The Shack is engaging, but you  have to dig in and roll up your pants once they throw up the tent poles for the revival nd listen to the sermon told between the glossy covers. It's really your choice and I chose to fold.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

The Singular Mark Twain--Review

You would think a man who was one of the bestselling authors of his time would not have financial difficulties. Just finished biography The Singular Mark Twain and I was amazed that apart from marrying well and making very good money from his books and lecturing--he had to file bankruptcy and died with very little money that was squandered by his daughters. When reading Twain's biography you are struck at how much money he made and how much he lost. He had a penchant for making terrible investments, getting caught up in get rich quick schemes and basically being bad with his money. Sounds like a writer to me.


We assume that as writers there are those out there with the mythical pot of gold. Well, there are. People do make millions from their books but they also lose millions. Mark Twain even had his own publishing company, his wife was wealthy, he made a bundle from lecturing around the country, his books sold well, yet he spent the latter years of his life in debt. He did what most people do when they get money, he increased his lifestyle and traveled.

He also really believed he had the key to riches with several inventions. What is interesting about the Twain character is that he knew a lot of times what he was doing was not in his best interests. But he could not help himself. He ended up having to lecture for years to pay his debts from a bankruptcy and basically living abroad because he could not afford to live in the United States. Amazing that one of our premiere authors could not afford to stay in his own house. He coudlnt' sell it either and ended up practically giving it away. The crash of 1890 pretty much wiped him out. I guess there is nothing new under the son. Hard times are hard times. Even for those at the top of the literary mountain.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Rocket Man will be out in January

The Citizen Book Reviewer

How many people read the New York Times Book Review? Raise your hands. Hmmm...small crowd. How many people go and buy the books after reading a NYT Book Review? Extremely small crowd.  I do read the New York Times Book Review. Religiously. Every Sunday. But I must confess to a feeling akin to reading short stories in The Saturday Evening Post and that is I am reading something that belongs to a different time. The books reviewed are of a certain staple: fiction, international fiction with protagonists who overcome incredible odds in war torn regions. Biographies of long lost literary figures or Teddy Roosevelt. Steve Martin's art novel. Up and coming novelists on the back pages. Literary lions no one has heard of outside the literary lion circles. Historical fiction.

Not that this is bad content, but it is no secret that book sections in the major newspapers are vanishing. The Chicago Tribune's book section was marginalized to the Saturday edition. The Washington Post Book World was eliminated. The New York Times Book Review is one of the last holdouts. So, the question is where are people going to find out about books now? An answer might be they are going nowhere to find out about books. Or we might believe what Steven Jobs said who proclaimed no one reads anymore--a self serving observation from Mr. IPOD. But the fact is people are still reading and reading a lot.

I have been to land over the rainbow and it is a bit like OZ. Strange new munchkins called Citizen Reviewers are reading and writing the reviews in cyber land and this is what people are reading. It is not only the big Book Blog sites that are claiming the attention of the reader, it is the ordinary posts of the ordinary reader. If books are still sold in the fundamental way of word of mouth then it makes perfect sense that the middleman paid reviewer would become antiquated in age of the Internet. We now have the direct links for readers to click on to find out to what the most relevant class of reviewers think--other readers.

 The obvious site for this well of reviews is Amazon.com where readers post directly to the book they just read. A book with fifty some reviews will give the reader a more balanced view of a book then the opinion of one Ivory Tower reader. Consensus is the word of the day in cyberland. Other sites like Library Thing, Shelfari, Goodreaders all work off consensus reviews. A hundred people read a book and rate it and then you get an average. The fringe reviewer who doesn't like anything and the over the top reviewer who loves everything are marginalized by a healthy discerning middle. No one is getting paid and yes you will have the author friends and enemies weighing in, but in there also will be people with honest opinions.

The result is much more democratic and that makes sense in a democracy. Art by the people and for the people and reviewed by the people. It doesn't matter really if we like it or not because it is here. The argument for a paid reviewer is one that he or she is trained to review. Maybe. But don't you get a skewed viewpoint by a single rarefied person reading books they prefer? Getting through the literary gates of most heavy hitter review publications is reserved for those who catch an editors whim who is literally deluged with books. We can't expect a fair and judicial process from harried overworked reviewers or editors who have even less staff today.

So, by default, we end up with a polyglot of books being reviewed by a polyglot of readers. The New York Times Book Review will always be the benchmark for the literary world and I think that is a good thing. But the Citizen Reviewer will certainly be a second opinion...something everyone should have.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com'/
Rocket Man will be out in January

Review of Revolutionary Road--the essential novel on the suburbs

I just finished Revolutionary Road. My forthcoming novel is about the hell of suburban living, but this book set the bar way back in the fifties. What a great book on the suburban culture of America. Frank and April are the quintessential suburbanites who have it all but have nothing. We pick up on them as they return from a play and get into a horrible fight. The fight is amazing in how vicious it becomes and the way Richard Yates funnels the stress of suburban living. This novel takes place in the fifties, but it certainly could be today.

April and Frank had been bohemians in Greenwich before moving to the burbs. A stunning scene is when April walks to the end of her drive and stares at every house just like hers.  The isolation, the nihilistic sense of doom is palpable as she stands in her drive in the quiet plasticity that is suburban life. She and Frank decide they want to go to Europe and escape the smothering sameness of their existence. As they plan their getaway Frank has numerous affairs and is promoted at his company. The brakes are put on their plan when April becomes pregnant. Desperately unhappy she has an affair and they fight over the abortion that April wants to have. An ancillary character that visits them from a mental institution raises the question of who is really insane.

The ending is dead on, but what Yates does masterfully with this novel is capture the soul deadening quality of suburban living for anytime. The frustration and desire of Frank and April of course are our own and while our resolution may not be as violent, Yates gives us a final image of a man turning down his hearing aid so he cannot hear his wife. He needs to say no more about the quiet madness of suburban life. We can relate.


http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
William Hazelgrove's latest novel, Rocket Man is due out in January.

A Meditation on Fame--Review of James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning

James Frey. Isn’t that the guy who duped Oprah? Yep. That’s him. Just read his latest book Bright Shiny Morning. It is about LA. Very interesting writer. Sort of man who skates very fast on thin ice. Not dishing the novel but I see why A Million Tiny Pieces did so well. Even if it wasn’t true, it must have read like a streak because Bright Shiny Morning reads like a streak. It is episodic. It starts and stops and takes crazy twists and ends up a in different place.


You really have to detangle the writer from the work although there is a thinly disguised chapter where Frey defends himself. He promises us tapes that will vindicate him. It is just an aside in a book of asides. And it is hardly germane to the book although one of Frey’s main themes is fame and the pilgrimage to LA for fame. There is a lot of carnage for the fame seekers and Frey spells this out very clearly for us.

But back to the novel. This is a novel. A good novel. I know why James did what he did on the first book that caused Oprah and so many others sorrow. He couldn’t sell it. Of course he couldn’t. No big hook and no big author then you are so much fodder for the rejection mill no how good the book is. But Frey is established now even if it is in the old there is no bad publicity and certainly the amount he received for this book (a cool mil and a half) bears this out. So he can now write whatever he wants and know that there is a good chunk in the bank.

So he did. Bright Shiny Morning dissects LA culture for our time. It is LA. Fast loose surface skating at about a hundred miles an hour. And it is contemporary. That is why I picked it up. I like writers who take on our time and they are hard to find. So it fits that James Frey–victim and predator is the man writing about our shameless culture of fame at any price. I could pop this review off with a snarly final sentence, ”something James Frey knows all about.” But that would demean the book and him. So I’ll finish up with the sentence that is none too cool. This is a very good novel.


William Hazelgrove's latest novel Rocket Man is due out in the fall
www.billhazelgrove.com

The Franzen controversy--how does the NYT review books?

Well, I have had one novel reviewed by the NY Times and it was my second book and if I wade into the controversy, I was male and it was mainstream and literary. Hmmm. Well, it was, so they say. A book published by a small press brought out by Bantam in mass market format. Tobacco Sticks was my only nod from the NY Times book review and I was glad to get it. My first and my third book did not make the cut and I was never sure why. We will see with the fourth.

But if we are going to wade into the Franzen controversy over whether big foot white male writers are literary darlings...I have to say I have wished I was a woman for the last ten years. It seemed to me that women read most of the fiction published in this country and women are the editors and a lot of the books reviewed by NY Times are by women! Just goes to show you what side of the fence you are on colors your view. I must say I have found myself frustrated by the amount of history and well, glitz books that sneak into the book review. The worst was the substantial coverage of Alec Baldwins book on divorce. Please.

But I have always pushed for that review every time my books came out. I must confess I never really thought the decision was gender based, more popularity based. My books just didn't make a big enough splash or someone from above didn't give them the obscure but literary nod. I fell into the well written, but not a mega-seller category--the upshot being for whatever reason they didn't catch the eye of the NYT review staff.

We like to think there is a great logic to these decisions, but I have found a lot of reviewers pick out books that appeal to them. Period. No grand judgement, just an individual making a decision. Obviously there are exceptions as in the case of Freedom. But I would ask the question how much does mass media play in these decisions? When the title wave comes from our collective literati, who alone can ask the question---but is this book any good? Now that is something to ponder.

William Hazelgrove's latest novel Rocket Man will be due out in the fall.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

The Call of Fame

The phone rings. I glance at the clock. Six A.M.
"Hello," I mumbled groggily."Mr. Hazelgrove, sir! I know it's early, but have you seen the paper?"
I stare at the ceiling with sleep circling somewhere above."No," I mumble."Sir," this very agitated voice continues. "You are PAGE ONE in the Chicago Tribune!""Page One," I repeat, sitting up. "YES SIR! This is John Tabot from Fox 32 television and we were wondering, sir, if you would consider being on the morning show?"
I hold my head, fog clearing by the second. "When?"
"This morning, sir! We have a crew standing by that can meet you at the attic, and we'll broadcast live! Can you meet us at 7?""I'll be there."I hang up the phone and run to the bathroom. My wife has just emerged from the shadow."That was Fox 32...They saw the Tribune article and want me live TV from Hemingway's attic," I say breathlessly."I'll watch the baby, "she says before I can ask.
Now I'm excited. It has all the earmarks. Awaked by a producer who wants me on television. I was being, dare I say, discovered! That was the way it always was, wasn't it? The writer from nowhere submits the dogeared manuscript to the sleepy editor and genius is discoveredon a nondescript morning. Wasn't that the way it happened to Fitzgerald and Hemingway? Waking one morning to find that and fortune hadknocked on their doors. I had opened that door many times to find no one there.



In the early part of the century, Fitzgerald was pulled from anuncertain career in advertising and Hemingway rescued from obscurity on Paris's Left Bank y the legendary editor Max Perkins. Their books published , the writers were left to explore the world. Fitzgerald went on a 10 year party from New York to Paris to Switzerland and back to New York. Hemingway drained absinthefrom cafes in Paris, then on Africa, the Germans, loyalist Spain, and basically had a hell of a time while his books propelled him on. That was the fare modern writers grew up hearing. That was the way it was then. Now lets take a modern writer such as myself. After more than 100 rejection letters, I found a printer in Chicago who would bring out my first novel. A printer. Max Perkins had changed vocations. My book, RIPPLES, recieved critical praise. I kept my job on the night shift in a bakery. My second book, armed with the good review of first, was roundly rejected again. I went back to the printer. My second go round started with a starred review from Publishers Weekly for Tobacco Sticks. After 10 years publishers came knocking, I sold the paperback rights, the foreign rights, Book of the Month Club rights, even the movie rights. I recieved money. it was time to explore the world as my predecessors had and reap forturnes bounty. But it is the late 20th century. Things change. Oh, it was time to hit the road alright. Muncie Indianna was where I started with a book signing. Then I was off to the South , pushing my novel in the area where it would be read, talking to newspapers, TV stations and radio along the way. This was gritty hard work. Not even remotely glamourous. Where the hell were the book parties? The tete-a-tetes on the Left Bank? The drunken brawls of the success in the Plaza Hotel?
The literary author of today must write what he or she believes in or perish. It is the only way one can stay with it. The money is scant for so long, the work outrageous, the future uncertain. But the work drives one. The novel becomes a grail that, like your children, you will do anything for. In todays mass culture the task is titanic. To quote a rejection letter from an agent, "You write well, but unfortunately, seriel sex muders are what is selling. Keep at it. Quietly good books get published."
Still, one cannot help but feel a little like the huckster. Wasn'ttalent supposed to be discovered? Wasn't a book supposed to catch fire like a lightning storm in a dry forest? It seems unnatural to fight for something that should be natural. Surely the days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald can't be completely gone. But now I'm writing in Hemingway's attic and the paperback of TOBACCO STICKS is just out. I dress quickly because fame has finally knocked on my door. I am about to leave when the phone rings.
"Mr. Hazelgrove, sir, this is John Tabot the producer at Fox 32.
"Yes, I'm on my way.""Yes sir, well...there is a fire on the west side and our crew has been called away...so we're going to have to wait on this.""I see," I say slowly.
"But listen, we can do this sometime in the future...Let me know if you get in PEOPLE magazine and we'll do it for sure."
I hang up the phone. Fame, that willowing ghost had slipped away again. I look at the front door then open it. There is the dewy morning and the sun on the porch. I close the door slowly and stand there. Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear I heard someone knocking.