Oh, I’m the book critic
paperhaus February 12th, 2010
Jennifer Weiner just called me a book critic, and she didn’t mean it in a nice way.
Weiner, of course, is the author of a heap of books, including Good in Bed & In Her Shoes, and a lively advocate for popular fiction. She thought I was shitting on Jackie Collins when I tweeted “Jackie Collins, serving up sexy Hollywood trash! Oh, YAWN.” Her reply was swift: “Book critic being snotty, dismissive to popular commercial writer? I see your yawn + raise you a coma.”
Well, she hadn’t clicked on the link, to this Jacket Copy post — it’s about how Collins’ stock-in-trade — shockingly sexy tales of Hollywood! — has been usurped by sources of more immediate gratification: TMZ, Perez Hilton, you know. Seems to me like there isn’t much of a place for 400-page trashy Hollywood novels anymore. Collins has a new book, Poor Little Bitch Girl, that treads a mashup of Heidi Fleiss and Paris Hilton and more and… feels very tired.
What shocked me, though, wasn’t anything about Jackie Collins — it was that Jennifer Weiner was calling me a book critic. As if I was one of those shadow bogeymen of haute culture, a gatekeeper. Me? But… and I think of all the ways that I have been outside the gates. Oh, so many. Oh, for so long. Take today: I am totally wearing the wrong shoes.
But it’s true, I have to admit, that I write book reviews. I’ll be on the board of the National Book Critics Circle, starting in March. And I love writing about books, in a way that’s thoughtful, and even smart.
And I suppose that makes me a book critic.
And I think I’m OK with that.