Don't Trust Author Blurbs

[Thomas Beshear]

I've heard the practice called log rolling, which I think also applies to 
writing a review of a book written by a friend or colleague or mentor. 
Mutual back scratching is another way of looking at it. I often look at book 
blurbs (especially on hardcovers) and try to judge which clique a writer 
belongs to.

For example, take the jacket of a book I just read: So Cold the River by 
Michael Koryta. Koryta is a mystery novelist who is branching out  -- So 
Cold is a thriller with horror (a ghost, Midwestern gothic) elements. Front 
cover has blurbs by Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane, heavy hitters in the 
detective novel field Koryta has been a part of. All three writers are 
regionalists: their detective novels all hew to a particular place: LA for 
Connelly, Boston for Lehane, Cleveland for Koryta. Connelly has blurbed 
previous novels and Koryta has thanked him and Lehane on acknowledgment 
pages, including in So Cold.

The back cover has blurbs by high-profile writers Scott Smith, Dan Simmons, 
Stewart O'Nan, and Joe R. Lansdale. All have written horror, and O'Nan and 
Lansdale are considered regionalists (O'Nan is primarily a literary 
novelist). Koryta is published by Little, Brown, which also publishes 
Simmons.

I'm not always sure what the connections, mean, but I imagine these things 
are hints about the publishing business.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Bailey" <sundayjb at gmail.com>
To: "Pynchon Liste" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 11:03 PM
Subject: Don't Trust Author Blurbs


> Interesting piece on Salon.com about how author-written blurbs almost
> never reflect the sentiments of the author but are instead usually
> personal favours or professional obligations:
>
> http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/07/09/blurbs/index.html